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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 




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UNITED STATES OF AMEEICA. 



The Collects 



THE BOOK OF COi\ 



YiiAIMUj HBT 

MON PRMC R 



g^n a^ximiixm, (flviiml mxtX §tV0imx^l 



ABRIDGED FROM DEAN GOULBURN' S 
''THE COLLECTS OF THE DAY'' 



"^ 



" Prayers of matcliless profundity, which comprehend all the 
spiritual needs of man." — Archdeacon FREEMA^ 




New York 
E. P. BUTTON AND COMPANY 

39 West 23d Street 
1883 



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3^ 






Copyright, 1883, 
By E. p. DUTTON & CO. 



iV. Johnland 
Stereotype Foundry, 
SujSTolk Co., N. Y. 



Press of 

J. y. Little &^ Co., 

10 Astor Place, N. V. 



CONTENTS. 



Introductory. -.... ;^ . 

On the Excellences of the Collects . . . 1. 
On the Origin of the word Collect ... 6 
On the Structure of a Collect .... 8 
Of the Sources of the Collects .... 11 
Of the Sacramentary of Leo . . . .12 
Of the Sacramentary of Gelasius . . .13 
Of the Sacramentary of Gregory the Great . 17 
Of the Use of Sarum ..... 18 

On the Collects of Archbishop Cranmer . . 22 
Of the Restoration Collects .... 26 

The First Sunday ix Advent . . .30 

The Second Sunday in Advent . . .35 

The Third Sunday in Advent . . .41 

The Fourth Sunday in Advent . . .47 
Christmas Day ...... 52 

St. Stephen's Day . . . . .57 

St. John the Evangelist's Day . . .62 

The Innocents' Day . . . . .66 

The Circumcision of Christ . . . .71 

The Epiphan-y 77 

First Sunday after the Epiphany . . 82 

Second Sunday after the Epiphany . .86 

Third Sunday after the Epiphany . . 91 

Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany . . 96 

Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany . .100 

Sixth Sunday after the Epiphany . . 104 



IV 



CONTENTS. 



Septuagesima . . . -^ 

Sexagesima .... 

QuiNQUAGESIMA 

Ash AVednesday . 
The First Sunday, in Lent . 
The Second Sunday in Lent 
The Third Sunday in Lent . 
The Fourth Sunday in Lent 
The Fifth Sunday in Lent . 
The Sunday next before Easter 
Good Friday. — I . 
Good Friday. — II 
Good Friday. — III 
Easter Eyen 
Easter Day . 
The First Sunday after Easter . 
The Second Sunday after Easter 
The Third Sunday after Easter. 
The Fourth Sunday after Easter 
The Fifth Sunday after Easter . 
The Ascension Day 
The Sunday after Ascension Day 
"Whitsun Day .... 
Trinity Sunday .... 
The First Sunday after Trinity. 
The Second Sunday after Trinity 
The Third Sunday after Trinity 
The Fourth Sunday after Trinity 
The Fifth Sunday after Trinity 
The Sixth Sunday after Trinity 
The Seventh Sunday after Trinity 
The Eighth Sunday after Trinity 



111 
116 
121 
127 
133 
139 
144 
148 
152 
157 
163 
169 
175 
184 
192 
197 
202 
207 
215 
219 
224 
228 
232 
237 
241 
245 
250 
254 
258 
262 
266 
270 



CONTENTS. V 

The Ninth Sunday after Trinity . .274 
The Tenth Sunday after Trinity . .277 
The Eleventh Sunday after Trinity . .281 
The Tw-elfth Sunday after Trinity . .287 
The Thirteenth Sunday after Trinity . 292 
The Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity . 298 
The Fifteenth Sunday after Trinity . . 302 
The Sixteenth Sunday after Trinity . .308 
The Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity . 312 
The Eighteenth Sunday after Trinity . 316 
The Nineteenth Sunday after Trinity . 320 
The Twentieth Sunday after Trinity. . 324 
The Twenty-first Sunday after Trinity . 329 
The Twenty-second Sunday after Trinity . 333 
The Twenty-third Sunday after Trinity . 337 
The Twenty-fourth Sunday after Trinity . 342 
The Twenty-fifth Sunday after Trinity . 347 
On the Saints' Day Collects . . . 352 
St. Andrew's Day ..... 358 

St. Thomas the Apostle .... 364 
The Conversion of St. Paul . . . 369 
The Presentation of Christ in the Temple, 

COMMONLY CALLED, THE PURIFICATION OF St. 

Mary the Yirgin . . . . .374 

St. Matthias's Day 380 

The Annunciation of the 

Mary 
St. Mark's Day . 



Blessed Virgin 



. 385 
. 390 

St. Philip and St. James's Day . . . 394 
St. Barnabas the Apostle . . . .399 
St. John Baptist's Day .... 404 
St. Peter's Day . . . . . .413 



vi CONTENTS. 

St. James the Apostle. .... 421 
St. Bartholomew the Apostle . . .426 
St. Matthew the Apostle .... 429 
St. Michael and All Angels . . .435 
St. Luke the Evangelist .... 441 
St. Simon and St. Jude, Apostles . . 447 

All Saints' Day 456 

The Constant Collect of the Communion 

Service ....... 464 

The First Collect at the End of the 

Communion Service . . . . .471 
The Second Collect at the End of the 

Communion Service ...... 479 

The Third Collect at the End of the 

Communion Service ..... 484 
The Fourth Collect at the End of the 

Communion Service ..... 488 
The Fifth Collect at the End of the 

Communion Service ..... 494 
The Collect at the End of the Order of 

Confirmation ...... 500 

The Collect for Peace, at Morning Prayer . 506 
The Collect for Grace, at Morning Prayer . 511 
The Collect for Peace/at Evening Prayer . 517 
The Collect for aid against Perils, at 

Evening Prayer ..... 522 



THE COLLECTS. 



INTKODUCTORY. 

On the Excellences of the Collects. 

GOLDEN VIALS FULL OF ODOKS, WHICH AEE THE PILVTEKS OF SAINTS. 

Rev. V. 8. 

THE CoUects of the English Prayer Book 
have received various eulogies from au- 
thors of note. Bishop Sanderson called them 
" the most passionate, proper, and most elegant 
expressions" (of devotional feeling) "that any 
language ever afforded; and that there was in 
them such piety, and so interwoven with in- 
structions, that they taught us to know the 
power, the wisdom, the majesty, and mercy of 
God, and much of our duty both to Him and 
our neighbor." Alexander Knox said of them 
that "for twelve hundred years they had been 
as the manna in the wilderness to devout spirits, 
and are, next to Scripture itself, the clearest 
standard whereby genuine piety may be dis- 
cerned; the surest guidance by which its prog- 
ress may be directed; the highest mark to which 
its wishes would aspire." Lord ^Nlacaulay, hit- 
ting in few words their chief characteristics, com- 
mends them for "their unity of sentiment and 



2 ON THE EXCELLENCES OF 

severity of stjde." Arclideacon Freeman speaks 
of tliem as "prayers of matcliless profundity, 
which comprehend all the spiritual needs of 
man." But, at the outset of our exposition of 
them, it will be interesting and edifying to con- 
sider the language in which Holy Scripture itself 
describes "the prayers of saints," and to note 
how exactly the Collects in their main features 
correspond with this description. This, then, is 
the symbol under which, in the sublime opening 
vision of the Revelation, " the prayers of saints " 
are set forth — " golden vials full of odors." 

Prayer has an outward and an inward part. 
The outward part is the expression or language 
in which it is couched; the inward part is the 
sentiment exj)ressed. But let no one think that 
in set forms of prayer the language chosen to be 
the vehicle of devotion need not be, and ought 
not to be, studied. The symbol employed in 
Holy Scripture to denote the outward part of a 
prayer is a " golden vial," or, as the word might 
be more ^^I'operly rendered, a golden cup, vase, 
or urn. The material, the costliest metal — gold; 
the form graceful, as were all the household im- 
plements of the ancients. The words employed 
in prayer should be sound, sterling words; and 
the method of their arrangement felicitous and 
elegant. Is not this exactly the case with our 
Collects ? Are not the words employed in them 
the purest and best English known^ — represent- 
ing to us our language, when it was in full vigor. 
Is there not abundant evidence in the translated 



THE COLLECTS. 3 

Collects, that both the original composers aud 
the translators have bestowed much study and 
pains on the words used ? And in the arrange- 
ment of these words, the balancing of clauses, 
and the giving unit}^ to the whole composition, 
they have been as happy as in their choice of 
words. Nor let it be thought that elaborate skill 
bestowed on the wording of set prayers is out of 
place. The Psalms are the Church's inspired 
Prayer Book. And what are the Psalms but 
compositions of the most elaborate kind, as ev- 
ery one who has studied them in the original 
knows, — almost made, one might say, by rule 
and square; some of them acrostics, like the sec- 
tions of the hundred and nineteenth Psalm; and 
in all of them stanza corresponding to stanza, 
antistrophe to strophe; and parallelism, the great 
principle of Hebrew poetry, running through 
them all? 

But important as the outward part of prayer 
is, it is not so important as the sentiment of 
which it is the vehicle. After all, the " golden 
vial " is but a vehicle of the sweet odors or " in- 
cense.'' The sentiment expressed in a j)i'ayer 
may be of fwo kinds; — it may be a sentiment 
grasped merely by the understanding, or a sen- 
timent echoed by the heart; we may nakedly 
'perceive such and such an object to be desii'able, 
or we may/eeZ it to be desirable. As to the first 
of these, how do we know a certain prayer to be 
legitimate, a certain object to be desirable ? St. 
Paul says that "we know not what we should 



4 ON THE EXCELLENCES OF 

pray for as we ouglit." But By His Spirit in ttie 
Holy Scriptures God hath revealed to us what 
are just objects of desire, and what not. And 
thus the first recommendation of a prayer is that 
'it should be Scri]Dtural — in conformity, that is, 
with the mind of God, as revealed to us in His 
written word. This is the fragrant odor, the 
sweet incense, with which we should perfume 
our prayers; and this is just the secret of the 
generally acknowledged power and unction of 
Bishop Andrewes's Prayers, that they live and 
move and have their being in the element of 
Holy Scripture. And thoroughly Scriptural are 
these Collects of ours also; the translated ones 
profoundly Scriptural, for in them the reference 
to Scripture is more in the sentiment and less in 
the phraseology, but yet leaps to light after a 
very little study, and surprises us by its beauty 
and significance ; the new ones patently Scriptural, 
and for the most part citing the actual words of 
Inspiration. 

But we may perceive the sentiment of a prayer 
to be just, beautiful, Scriptural, and in confor- 
mity with God's mind, and yet feel unable to 
throw into it our desires, affections, longings, 
which are the true " odors " of which the " gold- 
en vial" is the vehicle. To see that we ought 
fervently to desire such and such an object is 
one thing; fervently to desire it is another. 
What shall we do when our hearts are dry in 
prayer, when, if there be incense in them, it is 
incense unkindled, which emits no fragrance? 



THE COLLECTS. 5 

There was in the Jewish ritual an offering of 
unkindled incense, from which perhaps we may 
gather a useful lesson. The lower sort of in- 
cense, consisting of a single gum {lebonah), was 
placed in golden saucers or rials on the shew- 
bread, and this, unlike the higher incense, — a 
compound of several sweet spices, which was of- 
fered every morning and evening upon the altar 
of incense, — was never burned. There it lay be- 
fore God in the stillness of his sanctuary, never 
touching the live coals on the incense altar, nor 
ascending in a fragrant cloud towards heaven. 
What an admirable emblem of a prayer without 
unction or fervor, — when we sincerely wish and 
mean to pray, but our minds are dry and hard, 
when even to collect the attention is a painful 
effort, and the whole service throughout is one 
long struggle to retain it. We know that, if 
the feehngs and affections were enlisted, prayer 
would seem to soar on the wings of a favorable 
wind from our hearts to heaven; but at present 
there seems to be no heart in the exercise. If 
we have done our best by honest effort, if our 
mind and will is to pray, the best method of at- 
taining the object is simply to fall back on the 
thought of the presence of Christ, and to wait 
upon Him in silence and patience till the light 
of his countenance stream in upon the soul, even 
as the unkindled incense was simply set out be- 
fore God. He will send down His Holy Spirit, 
the true fire from heaven, upon the affections of 
the heart, and kindle them and make them as- 



6 ON THE ORIGIN OF 

pire towards Himself. Prayer needs, to make it 
effectual — indeed to make it prayer at all — tlie 
work botli of the Son and of the Spirit of God; 
of the one to intercede without, of the other to 
stir the cold and dead affections within. Thus 
aided, thus stirred, it rises far above clouds and 
skies and stars into God's presence-chamber, as 
naturally as kindled incense streams upwards, 
and becomes infinitely acceptable to Him through 
the merits of His Son — "an odor of a sweet 
smell, a sacrifice acceptable, well - pleasing to 
God." 

On the Origin of the Word Collect. 

The word Collect seems to be used in the 
Book of Common Prayer in a stricter and in a 
laxer sense. In the strictest sense of the word, 
those prayers only are Collects, which are used 
as the characteristic j)rayer of the week at the 
Holy Communion, and which have an Epistle 
and Gospel associated with them. The Collect 
in this sense, is, as Archdeacon Freeman has 
shown, a Eucharistic prayer, condensing the de- 
votional thought which is suggested by the Epis- 
tle and Gospel, and keeping it before the mind 
during the week. 

As to the derivation of the word, it is a doubt- 
ful point, and the learned in such matters are 
divided in opinion. The Latin word is Gollecta, 
which may mean a gathering of any sort— of 
money, as at a collection in church for some 
charitable object; or of people, as when two 



THE WORD COLLECT. 7 

or three are "gathered together" for common 
prayer; or of subjects of thought or stud}', as 
when an author at the end of a chapter gathers 
ujD in. a short summary or recapitulates what he 
has said. The question then arises, What is it 
which in a Collect is gathered up or collected ? 
Some say the prayers of the people, which the 
priest, in using the Collect, gathers up into one 
comjDendium and presents before God. Some 
say it is the teaching of Holy Scripture, and 
more especially of the Epistle and Gospel for the 
day, which is gathered up and condensed in a 
Collect. Other some think that the word may 
denote that collectedness of mind which is re- 
quired in all true worship, and which the Col- 
lects, so full of thought, and yet of thought close- 
ly packed and succinctly expressed, well repre- 
sent. While others, again, hold that the gathering 
denoted by the word Colleda is simpl}^ a gather- 
ing of people, and that the full name of a Collect, 
of which the word CoUecfa is merely an abbreyia- 
tion, is oratio ad collectam, a prayer to be used at 
the gathering together of the people for divme 
worship. To my mind this last explanation of 
the word seems to be, not indeed the most at- 
tractive, but the most hkely to be the true one. 
And we may connect this derivation . of the 
word with one of the features of the Collects, 
which is, that they are all general praj^ers, ap- 
plicable to the whole of God's household the 
Church, representing the spiritual necessities of 
all, and therefore offered by all in common. 



8 ON THE STRUCTURE OF A COLLECT. 

Thus the Collect, if we accept this as the true 
origin of the word, brings before us the precious 
promise of our Lord to the two or three who 
agree as to the object of their petitions, a prom- 
ise, by which he pledges Himself that, if they 
meet in His name, — if the hearts of those who 
come together do so in recognition of Him, and 
design what they do as an act of homage to Him, 
— there shall be more than two or three; an in- 
visible and mysterious form shall stand in the 
midst of them, even the form of Him who was 
visibly present in the furnace with the three 
holy children, and His presence and intercession 
shall open the windows of heaven, and bring 
down in God's due time the blessing for which 
the little flock have agreed to sue. 

On the Structure of a Collect 

The Collects are all of them framed on one 
plan, although in some of them the plan is im- 
perfectly worked out. All are not perfect speci- 
mens; some want one member, some another. 
The plan is well worth considering, not onty as 
exhibiting what may be called the theory of a 
Collect, but also as teaching incidentally many 
edif^dng lessons respecting prayer. 

Every house which is to stand securely must 
have a foundation; every prayer, which is to 
reach to heaven, must be built on some parfc of 
God's revelation of Himself. Man could never 
have spoken a word to God, except in the first 
instance God had spoken a word to him. And 



ON THE STRUCTURE OF A COLLECT. 9 

if I am reminded that prayer is known and prac- 
tised by the whole family of man, heathens as 
well as others, my answer is that even to the hea- 
then God has revealed Himself in Nature, and 
has spoken through their conscience. If nature 
did not give the heathen some intimations of 
the existence of an all-wise, all-powerful, and 
most beneficent Creator, and if conscience did 
not assure them that this Creator is a Judge to 
whom they are morall}^ accountable, is it con- 
ceivable that they could pra}^? The Collects, 
therefore, have their foundation laid in some 
word of God. In a perfect specimen, immedi- 
ately after the invocation (that is, the name or 
title by which God is invoked), follows the reci- 
tal of some doctrine or else of some fact, con- 
nected with, if not forming part of, the plan of 
redemption. 

Next after the invocation and doctrine of a 
Collect comes the actual petition, which consti- 
tutes the body of the prayer. This is the central 
point of the composition, to which all that goes 
before leads up, and out of which grows all tha,t 
follows. 

The next member of a Collect, and a very im- 
portant one, which is seldom wanting in any 
specimen, is the aspiration or devout wish with 
which it closes, and is as it were the wing to the 
petition, the feather which carries tile arrow of 
prayer right up to the habitation of God's holi- 
ness and glory in heaven. It may well remind 
us of the indispensability of fervor to the accept- 



10 ON THE STRUCTURE OF A COLLECT. 

ance and success of our prayers — that, if we 
would have them answered, we must not only 
ask, but seek (with diligence and carefulness, as 
the woman in the parable sought for the lost 
coin) ; not only seek, but knock, as Peter " con- 
tinued knocking " when the door of Mary's house 
was not at first opened — assured that there is 
One within who hearkens, and only delays an an- 
swer in order to draw out importunity and ear- 
nestness. Winged with fervent aspirations, our 
prayers shall assuredly soar above clouds, and 
skies, and stars, to the very throne of God, and 
awaken the sympathy and draw down the succor 
of Christ. And if it be said almost despairingly 
that there are times when we cannot have fervor 
in prayer, when the mind is dry and hard, or 
hopelessly distracted, when the will is almost 
paralyzed for any spiritual or moral effort; this 
is most true, alas ! but the only remedy is to be 
found, not in giving over, but in persistence, 
until the necessary fervor comes, and the feather 
is put to the shaft of our prayer. Is it not said, 
" They that wait upon the Lord," meekly and 
patiently attending at the throne of grace, in- 
stead of putting off the application to a more 
convenient season, "shall renew their strength; 
they shall mount up with wings as eagles " (the 
holy aspiration shall be the wing, while the Holy 
Spirit shall be the wind); "they shall run, and 
not be weary, and they shall walk, and not 
faint"? 

The constituent parts of a Collect, then, are — 



OF THE SOURCES OF THE COLLECTS. 11 

1st, the invocation; 2dl3'', the recital of some doc- 
trine or fact, which is made the basis of the peti- 
tion; 3dly, the petition itself, which rises upon 
this basis; 4thly, the asjDiration, which is the 
feather or wing* to the j)etition; othlv, in all 
Collects addressed to the Father, the alleging of 
the Mediator's work on our behalf, and the 
pleading of His Name, which, it need hardly be 
said, is the alone procuring cause of the accept- 
ance of any prayer. 

Of the Sources of the Collects. 

The sources of the- Pre-Reformation Collects 
are to be found in the old Sacramentaries. For 
at least the first thousand years of the Church's 
existence there was no single book which con- 
tained the whole service of the Holy Communion 
or (as it was then called) the Mass. This service 
was contained in four books; the Lectionary, 
containing the portions of Scripture which were 
read as Epistles; the Evangelistary, containing 
the Gospels; the Antiphonary, containing the 
Anthems (which were called Introits, Commun- 
ions, or Post-Communions, according as they 
were sung at the opening of the service, or dur- 
ing, or subsequently to, the administration) ; and, 
finally, the Sacramentary, which contained the 
Collects, together with the body of the service, 
which never changed under any circumstances, 
and which was called the Canon of the Mass. 
Imagine our Collects severed from their Epistles 
and Gospels, and printed in a separate volume 



12 OF THE SACRAMENTARY OF LEO. 

with the " Order of the Administration of the 
Lord's Supper, or Holy Communion " ; and that 
would be the Sacramentary of the Church of 
England. 

Of the Sacramentary of Leo. 

The earliest in date of the Sacramentaries goes 
under the name of Leo I., who was Pope, or 
Bishop of Borne, from a.d. 440 to a.d. 461. "We 
need not suppose that it, or any other Sacra- 
mentary, was entirely composed by the prelate 
whose name it bears. Many parts of it, no doubt, 
were so composed; but in other parts the Sacra- 
mentary would be a compilation rather than a 
composition — an arrangement, that is, of pre- 
viously existing materials, of much the same 
sort as was made by our Reformers, when they 
adapted the old Latin offices to the use of the 
Reformed Church. Seven of our Communion 
Collects come from Leo, that is, were either com- 
posed or adopted by him, and these seven are the 
oldest of all. They are those for the Third Sun- 
day after Easter, and for the Eifth, Ninth, Tenth, 
Twelfth, Thirteenth, and Eourteenth Sundays 
after Trinity. 

He w^as great as a prayer-composer and prayer- 
compiler. Here is one of his Collects,^ so exactly 
suitable to the circumstances in which history 
exhibits him, that it may have been as much 
composed for these circumstances as manj^ of 
David's Psalms were for the incidents of his 
' For the Fifth Sunday after Trinity. 



OF THE SACRAMENTARY OF GELASIUS. 13 

chequered life : " Grant, O Lord, we beseech 
thee, that the course of this world may be so 
peaceably ordered by thy governance, that thy 
Church may joyfully serve thee in all godly quiet- 
ness; through Jesus Christ our Lord." When 
the Goths, the Huns, and Vandals were hovering 
over the moribund Roman Empire, like a flight 
of vultures preparing to pounce upon a dying 
camel in the desert, as soon as the breath is out 
of his body, there was certainly some point, and 
there was Hkely to be some sincerity, in such a 
prayer. 

Of the Saoramentary of Gelasius. 

An interval of rather more than half a century 
separates the Pontificate of Leo, the composer of 
the first great Sacramentary which has come 
down to our times, from that of Gelasius, whose 
name the second bears, and* who was raised to 
the Bishopric of Rome in the last decade of the 
fifth century, a.d. 492. 

I suppose there are few thoughtful readers of 
the Prayer Book, who have not been at times 
struck with its constant supphcations for }Deace 
and quietness, and with the sort of assumption 
which runs through it that the Church is in the 
presence of foes, from whose snares she needs to 
be delivered, and over whose opposition she 
needs to be made triumj)hant. Of course all 
these expressions are capable of, and ought to 
receive, a spiritual interpretation; but still they 
bear on them the stamp of having had a Hteral 



14: OF THE SACRAMENTARY OF GELASIUS. 

application originally; and tlie fact that they 
color the services so largely requires to be ac- 
counted for. Probably these prayers were hatched 
in a time of revolution and political agitations, in 
a time when an old order of things was being 
broken up and giving place to a new, when "the 
highways were unoccupied" (to use Deborah's 
forcible expression), " and the travellers walked 
through byways." Here are a few of the traces, 
which those old revolutionary times have left on 
the Collects of Gelasius's Sacramentary : " Defend 
us thy humble servants in all assaults of our ene- 
mies; that we, surely trusting in thy defence, may 
not fear the j)Ower of any adversaries;" "that we 
being defended from the fear of our enemies 
may pass our time in rest and quietness;" "that 
so, among the sundry and manifold changes of 
the world, our hearts may surely there be fixed, 
where true joys are to be found; " "O God, whose 
never-failing j)rovidence ordereth all things both 
in heaven and earth; We humbly beseech thee 
to put away from us all hurtful things;" "keep 
us, we beseech thee, from all things that may 
hurt us;" "that, among all the changes and 
chances of this mortal life, they may ever be de- 
fended by thy most gracious and ready help" 
(this was originally a Collect appointed to be 
said at a mass for one going a journey); "O 
Lord, we beseech thee, let thy continual pity 
cleanse and defend thy Church; and, because it 
cannot continue in safety without thy succor, 
preserve it ever more by thy help and goodness." 



OF THE S A CR AMENTA RY OF GELASIUS. 15 

Such passages come to liave a new and vivid 
meaning, when looked at under the hght thrown 
upon them by his times. 

His pontificate was short, lasting only four 
years. Unhappily he manifested the same strong 
tendency to lord it over God's heritage, and 
to establish the ecclesiastical supremacy of the 
popes, of which his predecessor Leo, and more 
recently Felix III., had set the example. 

Of Collects in the strictest sense (for the Com- 
munion, and having Epistle and Gospel) Canon 
Bright attributes twenty and a half to Gelasius's 
Sacramentary (Fourth in Advent, Innocent's Day, 
Palm Sunday, Good Friday II., first half of Easter 
Day, Fourth and Fifth after Easter, First, Second, 
Sixth, Seventh, Eighth, Tenth, Eleventh, Twelfth, 
Fifteenth, Sixteenth, Eighteenth, Nineteenth, 
Twentieth, and Twenty-first after Trinit}'); be- 
sides the Morning and Evening Collects for 
Peace, the Evening Collect for Aid against all 
Perils, the Prayer for the Clergy and People, 
"Assist us mercifully," the Confirmation Prayer 
for the sevenfold Spirit, the prayer " O most 
merciful God " in the Visitation of the Sick, and 
the first Collect in the Communion Service — 
twenty-eight and a half in all. 

The greatest devotional gem of Gelasius's Sac- 
ramentary is the Collect for Peace, aj^i^ointed 
to be said daily at Evening Prayer; a prayer 
which, perhajDS, is dearer to the heart of the de- 
vout than any other in the whole Prayer Book, 
the Lord's own Prayer only excepted; " O God, 



16 OF THE SA CR AMENTA RY OF GELA SI US. 

from wliom all holy desires, all good counsels, 
and all just works do proceed; Give unto thy 
servants that peace v^hich the world cannot give; 
that both our hearts may be set to obey thy com- 
mandments, and also that by thee, we being de- 
fended from the fear of our enemies, may pass 
our time in rest and quietness." Observe the 
progress of divine grace in the heart, from the 
bud to the blossom, from the blossom to the full- 
formed fruit — "holy desires " first; "good coun- 
sels" (or purposes) next; " just " (or righteous) 
" works " last. And observe, too, how the whole 
prayer is based upon our Lord's invitation to 
the weary and heavy laden; how the great truth 
is recognized that, the rest ivhich is of God's giving 
must be received and realized before the heart 
can be set to obey God's commandments; and 
that then, when this obedience is yielded, when 
Christ's, yoke is borne, and His example faith- 
fully imitated, then supervenes the rest of man's 
finding—" that we may pass our time in rest and 
quietness." Peace in the conscience through 
Christ's blood; then righteousness built on that 
peace; then finally, as the fruit^of righteousness, 
peace, and as " the effect of righteousness, quiet- 
ness and assurance for ever." 

One has seen at the root of a decaying tree 
tufts of wild hyacinths or primroses, engendered 
by that decay, bred of corruption. And there are 
correspondences in the moral world with this 
natural phenomenon. When the old Roman Em- 
pire was in its last stage of decay, when all old 



OF THE SA CR AMENTA R V OF GRE G OR V. 1 7 

landmarks were being removed, and old institu- 
tions were going to pieces, then appeared for the 
first time these bunches of fragrant beautiful 
prayers, giving token of a spiritual vitality below 
the surface of society, a sure evidence that all 
was not corrupt, that the antiseptic salt of God's 
grace in the hearts of His elect endured still, 
and had not lost its savor. 

Of the Sacramentary of Gregory the Great. 

Whatever view may be taken of the character 
of Gregory the Great, who became Bishop of 
Rome A.D. 590, and into whose pontificate of 
thirteen or fourteen years was contracted an 
amount of activity, political, ecclesiastical, and 
intellectual, enough for the lifetime of two or 
three ordinary men, the English Church cannot 
help regarding his memory with reverence. 

He has left his mark deep upon Church music, 
and on the English Book of Common Praj^er. 
Who has not heard of Gregorian chants, w^hich, 
whatever may be thought of their ruggedness 
and severity, were yet, it would appear, less rug- 
ged and severe, and offered more variety, than 
those which St. Ambrose had imported into Italy. 

To Gregory's Sacramentary Canon Bright 
traces twent^^-seven and a half of our present 
Communion Collects. These are the Collects for 
St. Stephen's Day, St. John Evangehst's Day, the 
Epiphany, the Eirst, Second, Third, Fourth, and 
Fifth Sundays after the Epiphany, Septuagesima, 
Sexagesima, the Second, Third, Fourth, and Fifth 



18 OF THE USE OF SARUM. 

Sundays in Lent, the first for Good Friday, the 
second half of that for Easter Day, the Ascension, 
Whitsun Day, the Third, Fourth, Seventeenth, 
Twenty - second. Twenty - third. Twenty - fourth, 
and Twenty-fifth Sundays after Trinit}^, the Pu- 
rification, the Annunciation, Michaelmas Day, — 
as well as, " O God, whose nature and property," 
"Prevent us, O Lord," the final j)rayer of the 
Litany, the second Prayer in the Baptismal Office, 
and the first sentence of the first prayer in the 
Burial Service, — twenty-seven and a half Col- 
lects in the strict sense of the word, having Epis- 
tles and Gospels connected with them and used 
at the Communion. 

His object was to abridge, condense, improve, 
and re-arrange the earlier Sacramentaries of Leo 
and Gelasius ; in short, to do for them very much 
what Cranmer and our Reformers did for the 
old Latin Offices generall}^ 

Of the Uae of Sarum. 

Those of our Collects, which. are translated from 
the old Latin Offices, may for the most part be 
traced back to one of these three great Sacra- 
mentaries. But, although our translated Col- 
lects come to us from the Sacramentaries (and 
perhajos from a much earlier period still, the edi- 
tors of the Sacramentaries having been not so 
much authors as compilers and arrangers of what 
they found already in use), they do not come 
through the Sacramentaries. The work which 
our Reformers found them in, and took them 



OF THE USE OF SARUM. 19 

from, was tlie Missal or Mass Book of the Church 
of Sarum. And this Mass Book was part of the 
"Use of Sarum" — that is, of the Church Custom- 
Book, which was compiled by Osmund, Bishop 
of Sarum, and which was more generally adojDted 
than any of the other English "Uses," particu- 
larly in the southern parts of the kingdom. 

It will be well to say a word about this famous 
" Use," the sources from which, the occasion on 
which, and the person by whom, it was compiled. 
The monk Augustine, who Avas sent into this 
country, a.d. 597, b}" Pope Gregory the Great, 
brought with him the Lituro-y of the Roman 
Church. But, in passing through France on his 
way to England, he had found another liturgy, 
the Gallican, a liturgy of Eastern extraction, as 
the Roman was of Western. This Gallican lit- 
urgy, too, confronted him as soon as he arrived 
on these shores; for Queen Bertha, wife of Ethel- 
bert. King of Kent, had come over from France, 
and brought with her as her chaplain Luidhard, 
Bishop of Seulis, who doubtless would introduce 
those rites to which he had been accustomed in 
his own country. Perplexed by the differences 
between the two liturgies, Augustine consulted 
Gregory as to which he should ado]:)t in Eng- 
land. Gregory gave him a very liberal-minded 
and judicious answer, bidding him adopt, not 
necessarily the Roman customs, but whatever 
approved themselves most to his judgment, and 
telhno- him that "thino-s are not to be loved for 
the places in which they are found, but places 



20 OF THE USE OF SARUM. 

for the things which are found in them." We 
must suppose that he acted upon this good ad- 
vice, and that, while he would have a natural 
partiality for the modes of celebrating Divine 
Service to which he had been inured from his 
youth, he did not think it necessary to discard 
all the old Galilean forms which had existed in 
the country before the period of his mission. 
And thus was formed a com]30site ritual in Eng- 
land, v/itli some Galilean and some Roman ele- 
ments in it. With the Norman invasion, in a.d. 
1066, the Galilean Liturgy was again imported 
into the country', only with some modern altera- 
tions and recent usages, which had crept in dur- 
ing the four centuries and a half since Augus- 
tine's death. And there* soon came about a 
collision between these modern usages and those 
practised by the Saxons, which had been formed 
originall}'" under the instructions given by Greg- 
ory the Great to Augustine, and had taken grad- 
ually a set shape of their own. One of these 
collisions is said to have been the occasion of 
compiling the " Use of Sarum." Thurstan, a 
Norman monk of Caen, who had come over with 
the Conqueror, was appointed by him Abbot of 
Glastonbury in the year 1083. The new abbot 
found at Glastonbury the Gregorian mode of 
chanting, which had established itself in Eng- 
land from the sixth century. Thurstan preferred 
a modern, style of chanting, recently introduced 
in Normandy by W^illiam of Eecamp. With the 
arrogance of a man who felt himself to belong to 



OF THE USE OF SARUM. 21 

the conquering race, while at the same time the 
monks of his own house owed him canonical 
obedience, he set at nought the prepossessions 
of his Chaj>ter, and thrust the Fecamp mode of 
chanting upon them by his own authority. The 
monks sturdily declining to use it, the abbot in- 
troduced an armed force of Normans into the 
Chapter House, and there was scandalous tumult 
and massacre in the Abbey Church. The issue 
of this fray was that the king, seeing that the 
temper of the monks had made Glastonbury a 
place too hot to hold Thurstan, was obliged to 
recall and send him back to Normandy. The 
incident scandalized, as well it might, the more 
devout and learned ecclesiastics of the court. 
One of these was Osmund, the Conqueror's sec- 
ond Lord Chancellor. He had been Count of 
Seez in Normandy, had fought at Hastings, and 
was, in requital of his services, created Earl of 
Dorset, and entrusted with the great seal. In 
1078 he was appointed Bishop of Salisbury, the 
see which Herman, his predecessor, had recently 
translated from Wilton to Old Sarum. Being a 
man of learning, and versed also in Church song, 
he conceived the idea of settlino' the Ritual of 
the English Church, and thus of putting an end 
to that diversity of practice, which had given rise 
to such profane and disastrous contentions. He 
endeavored to ascertain the true text of the vari- 
ous Rubrics, and to rule in one way j)oints which 
hitherto had been left to the discretion of the 
minister. The result of his labor was the " Use 



22 ON THE COLLECTS OF ABP. CRANMER. 

of the illustrious and renowned Churcli of Sarum," 
first adopted for the diocese of Sarum in 1085 
and used in tlie new cathedral of Old Sarum in 
1087, but which eventually "became and con- 
tinued for four centuries and a half the principal 
devotional rule of the Church of England." ' In 
several of its features it differs materially from 
the Roman Liturgy, one of these being the Col- 
lect for Purity, which stands at the beginning of 
our Communion Office, and strikes the first note 
of that noble service, but which is not found, at 
least in that connection, in the Roman rite. 

On the Collects of Archbishop Cranmer. 
Our Reformers made an original contribution 
to the stock of old Collects which they found in 
the Missal of Sarum. They were not only trans- 
lators and compilers, but comj)osers also. Five 
of the Sunday Collects came from their pen; and 
these five are certainly not the least grand and 
edifying of the whole collection — the first two 
in Advent, the first two after Easter, and that 
for Quinquagesima Sunday. Nearly three times 
as large was their contribution to the Saints' Day 
Collects. For here, in the old Offices, were to be en- 
countered more of the unscriptural superstitions, 
which had utterly to be pruned away in order to 
fit the Prayer Book for the use of the Reformed 
Church. The gangrene of invocation of saints, 
and of confidence in their prayers and merits, 
had, as was to be expected, eaten much deeper 
1 Blunt's "Annotated Book of Common Prayer." 



ON THE COLLECTS OF ABP. CRANMER. 23 

into these than into the Sunday Collects. And 
it is observable how the Collect for All Saints' 
Day, which is one of those composed by the Ee- 
formers, and which acts as a sort of keystone, 
holding together the whole group of Saints' Day 
Collects, sketches briefly, but very exhaustively, 
the whole doctrine of the regard in which saints 
are to be held. We are to think of those who 
have fallen asleej) in Jesus as being still unseen 
members of that Church, which has spread itself 
visibly over the face of the earth; as having 
communion and fellowship with the same Fa- 
ther, through the same Saviour, and b}' the same 
Spirit as ourselves, according to the teaching of 
that glorious passage to the Hebrews: "Ye are 
come unto Mount Sion, and unto the city of 
the living God ... to the general assembly and 
Church of the first-born, which are written in 
heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the 
spirits of just men made perfect." For this signifi- 
cant All Saints' Collect, as well as for those for 
Christmas Day, and twelve of the minor Saints' 
days, our Prayer Book is indebted to our Re- 
formers; and no small debt it is. 

They reproduce most happily the antitheses 
and neatly-balanced clauses which are found in 
the Sacramentaries; and the English is of the 
raciest and best order. It is English, as Lord 
Macaulay has remarked, in tlie vigor of its ear- 
liest youth, just as our language was rising into 
its prime; whereas the Latin of the old Ofiice 
Books was Latin in its latest stage of decrepitude. 



24 ON THE COLLECTS OF ABP. 'CRANMER. 

It cannot be said for certain to whicli of the 
Keformers we are indebted for any particular 
Collect. The Act of Parliament which gave the 
first draught of the Praj^er Book its civil sanc- 
tion, names no one on the Commission excej^t 
Archbishop Cranmer, the other Commissioners 
being called generally "most learned and dis- 
creet bishops, and other learned men of the 
realm." They are generally stated to have been 
twelve in number, besides the Primate, — six 
bishops and six divines. Ridley, then Bishop of 
Eochester, afterwards translated to London, was 
certainly one of them. But the Archbishop of 
Canterbury, partly from his position, partly from 
the circumstance of his having initiated the move- 
ment for the revision of the Offices, would no 
doubt bear the chief part in the translation of, 
and additions to, the new Service Book, and we 
can hardly err in supposing that the new Collects 
reflect and exhibit his mind. 

One of his dying exhortations was that " you 
live all together like brethren and sisters; for this 
you may be sure, that whosoever hateth his broth- 
er or sister, and goeth about maliciously to hin- 
der or hurt him, surety, and without all doubt, 
God is not with that man, although he think 
himself never so much in God's favor." What 
an illustration is afforded by this dying counsel 
of the good archbishop, of the doctrine of one of 
his own Collects; "O Lord, who hast taught us 
that all our doings without charity are nothing- 
worth; Send thy Holy Ghost, and pour into our 



ON THE COLLECTS OF ABP. CRANMEK. 25 

hearts that most excellent gift of charity, the very 
bond of peace and of all vu*tues, without which 
whosoever hveth is counted dead before thee; 
Grant this for thine only Son Jesus Christ's 
sake." — And again, his choice of the subject of 
the Holy Scriptures for the lectures which he 
was to give at Cambridge, when raised to the 
degree of Doctor of Divinity; liis great desire, at 
a later period, to circulate the Scriptures in Eng- 
lish among the people; and his procuring a royal 
injunction to be issued to the clergy that every 
one of them " should provide a book of the whole 

Bible and la}^ it in the choir" [of their 

churches] " for every man that would look and 
read therein; and should discourage no man from 

reading any part of the Bible but rather 

comfort, exhort, and admonish every man to 
read it as the very Word of God, and the spirit- 
ual food of man's soul," — what an interest is given 
by these facts to another of Cranmer's Collects, 
— that on the right use of Holy Scripture, — for 
the truths of which the fresh bracing aii' of the 
Reformation had created a keen appetite among 
the people, an appetite which might be justly 
described in the language of the prophet, " Thy 
words were found, and I did eat them." " Blessed 
Lord, who hast caused all Holy Scripture to be 
written for our learning; Grant that we may in 
such wise hear them, read, mark, learn, and in- 
wardly digest them, that by patience, and com- 
fort of thy holy Word, we may embrace, and ever 
hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, 



26 OF THE RESTORATION COLLECTS. 

wliicli thou liast given us in our Saviour Jesus 
Christ." 

Of the Restoration Collects. 

Four of the Collects at present used in our 
Communion Office made their first appearance in 
connection with, and immediately after, the Savov 
Conference, which was held in 1661. These four, 
which we may call the Restoration Collects, are 
the Collects for the Third Sunday in Advent, for 
St. Stephen's Day, for the Sixth Sunday after 
Epiphany, and for Easter Even. They are all 
struck from one die; they all supply real gaps in 
the series of Collects, as the Reformers left them; 
and they are all, not only sound and Scriptural, 
but fine compositions. Yet we may trace in them 
some slight declension from the standard of Cran- 
mer's Collects, though, in respect of their explicit 
references to Holy Scripture, they are marked by 
a close resemblance to his. We lose sight of the 
balanced clauses and antitheses so characteristic 
of the old Sacramentaries, which Cranmer had 
happily reproduced. We note in them the ap- 
j)earance of two words to express one and the 
same idea. Then, generally, while all the Col- 
lects are written in rhythmical English which 
satisfies the ear, the rhythm is in the generality 
of them stern and chastened; but here, in these 
Restoration Collects, there is a slight tendency to 
pomposity and rhetorical artifice, such a phrase- 
ology as would be more suited to a preaching 
of the prayers than a praying of them. For the 



OF THE RESTORATION COLLECTS. 27 

rest, the Restoration Collects have their 'excel- 
lences and strong points. Each of them is built 
upon a single clear and definite idea, which is 
worked out very satisfactoril3^ In two of them, 
the Third in Advent and that for St. Stephen's 
Day, are found direct addresses to God the Son, 
which, though unusual in Collects said at the 
Communion, is a valuable feature, as distinctly 
recognizing the Divinity of our Blessed Lord, 
and, in the case of the St. Stephen's Collect, very 
happily keeping alive the memory of the martyr's 
djing prayer; while the Sixth after the Epiphany 
has in its close a direct invocation of the Holy 
Ghost, with a direct adoration of all the three 
Sacred Persons, which surel}' is unusually solemn 
and edifj'ing; "where with thee, O Father, and 
thee, O Hoty Ghost, He liveth and reigneth, ever 
one God, world without end." 

Who composed these Collects ? All that his- 
tory tells us is that they were drawn up by a 
committee of eight bishoj^s, at the head of which 
was John Cosin, Prince-Bishop of Durham, who, 
as a prince-palatine, would take precedence of 
the others. He therefore is mainly responsible 
for the Restoration Collects, even if he did not 
actually draught them himself, as it is probable 
he did. But why did not the ArchbislK)p of Can- 
terbury stand at the head of the Commission? 
In the natural course of things he would have 
done so; but Juxon was noAV so old (seventy- 
eight) as to be past work. So the Prince-Bishop 
of Durham, a divine who, some thirty-three years 



28 OF THE COLLECTS AS REPRESENTING 

before, liad published a very valuable book of 
Private Devotions, wliicli hundreds of Church- 
men still use as their guide in the religious exer- 
cises of the closet, was ver}^ suitably chosen as 
head of the Committee appointed to revise and 
amend the Book of Common Prayer. 



The Collects of the Church of England, like 
the truths of the Gospel, are both new and old. 
Not only were some of them made new at the 
Reformation, but the very Collects which were 
old then, became new in a certain sense. When 
the light of God's truth had fully dawned u^^on 
Cranmer and his colleagues, and when under it 
they looked back upon the ancient Offices, with 
which they had been familiar from childhood, 
these old forms became instinct with new life. 
The Church's system of worship, however, had 
been not onty vitiated by superstitions, but for- 
malized and deadened as regards any real power 
over the hearts of the people; it was wraj)j)ed up 
in a language unknown except to scholars, and 
had become a performance of the j)riest for the 
people instead of a Common Prayer both of priest 
and people. But, all this notwithstanding, our 
Reformers" had wisdom enough to perceive that 
hundreds of these old prayers lived, and moved, 
and had their being in an element of Holy Scrip- 
ture; were indeed the very echoes which, from 
the beginning of the Gospel dispensation, its 
truths had weakened from the hearts of believers. 



THE GENIUS OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH. 29 

So they threw them into our dear mother-tongue ; 
and where the stern terseness of the Latin seemed 
to require a new word or clause to bring out its 
full force, they added a happy touch of then- own, 
superseding altogether by original Collects those 
which were hopelessly corrupt, but framing even 
these original ones with great fidelity upon the 
model of the old. And it is a delight to us to 
know and believe that in the results of their work 
(forty-eight old Collects translated, nine altered, 
and twent3'-five new made) we have not only 
Scriptural truth, but that truth as tinged and 
dyed in the experience of very learned and de- 
vout men, all of w^hom suffered, while man}' died, 
for the championship of it. It was out of their 
own treasury that they brought forth things new 
and old, that is, out of the storehouse of hearts 
disciplined into the knowledge of the truth by 
God's Word and Spirit and Providence. 



Almighty God, give us grace that we may cast away the 
-works of darkness, and 2'>ut upon us the armor of 
light, noio in the time of this mortal life, in which 
thy Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great hu- 
mility; that in the last day, when He shall come again 
in His glorious Majesty to judge both the quick and 
dead, ice may rise to the life immortal, through Him 
icho livelli and reigneth icith thee and the Holy Ghost, 
now and ever. Ainen. 

THIS magnificent Collect was fii'st made in 
1549. It came from tlie pen of Cranmer 
and those who were engaged under him in re- 
vising the old Latin Offices, and adapting them 
to the use of the Reformed Church; and, like 
other passages of the Prayer Book which orig- 
inated with them, it shows how abundantly qual- 
ified they were for their task. The Collect for 
the First Sunday in Advent which was found in 
the old Office Books ran thus: "O Lord, raise 
up, we pray thee, thy power and come, that 
through thy protection we may be delivered 
fi'om the dangers which hang over us by reason 
of our sins, and through thy making us free we 
may be saved." But our Reformers had to con- 
sider that this same Collect, or one closely resem- 
bling it, makes its appearance in a fuller and 
better form on the Fourth Sunday in Advent. 



THE FIRST SUNDAY IN ADVENT. 31 

There seemed to them, no doubt, some poverty 
of conception in merely echoing on the fourth 
Sunday of a Church season the accents of the 
first. So they resolved to throw some new blood, 
if I may so say, into the Advent Collects; and 
very brisk and racy blood it is, as we shall see. 
While this first Collect glows with unusual fire 
and spirit, it, at the same time, possesses all the 
excellences of the old Collects, of which Canon 
Bright most justly tells us that "they exhibit an 
exquisite skill of antithesis, and a rhythmical har- 
mony which the ear is loth to lose," and that 
"they are never weak, never diluted, never drawl- 
ing, never ill-arranged." ^ How entirely does this 
description hold good of the short prayer before 
us ! How terse it is, and yet how full of matter ! 
How admirably arranged! How skilful in its 
antitheses, two of them indeed being Scrij^tural 
antitheses — "cast away," "put on"; "works of 
darkness, armor of light"; "in the time of this 
mortal life," "in the last day"; and again, 
"this mortal life," "the life immortal"; "to 
visit us," "to judge the quick and dead"; "in 
great humility," "in His glorious Majesty"! 
And, finally, what a grand roll and rhythm 
there is about the English, so that it is hard 
to say whether the ear or the mind finds most 
^[^ratification in it ! 

" The tmie of this mortal life " does not mean 
the season of the year at which we have now ar- 
rived, being merely an expansion of the idea 
1 "Ancient Collects," p. 290. 



32 THE FIRST SUNDAY IN ADVENT. 

contained in the sliort but pregnant word 
"now." And "time" has here the meaning 
which it has in that passage of the Second 
Epistle to the Corinthians, and elsewhere; it 
means a fit and proper time, an opportunity ; "Gi\'e 
us grace to put on the armor of light now — that 
is, in the opportunity which this mortal life gives 
us of doing so." And when it is said that He 
" came to visit us," the meaning is not merely 
that He came to jjay us a visit; but it is a piece 
of Scriptural phraseology, denoting the solemn 
coming of Christ to God's vineyard, the Jewish 
Church, with the offer of grace and salvation, 
which offer the Jews as a nation rejected, ac- 
cording to that Avord of His own, when weeping 
over their city, "because thou knewest not the 
time" (the opportunity) "of their visitation." 

The Collect is obviously founded upon a text 
in the E]3istle, the very words of which text it 
adopts, so that no one can possibly mistake the 
reference. The allusions to Holy Scripture in 
the old Collects, though abundant, are for the 
most part covert, and lie under the surface; 
while in the Collects composed by the Reform- 
ers, what we find is rather quotation than allu- 
sion. Here, for example, certain words of St. 
Paul to the Romans are cited: "The night is far 
spent, the day is at hand; let us therefore cast 
off the works of darkness, and let us put on the 
armor of light." And what is the simple, holy, 
beautiful thought of the apostle, as it flows on 
from point to point under the guidance of the 



THE FIRST SUNDAY IN ADVENT. 33 

Holy Ghost ? The day of Christ's second com- 
ing, which shall cheer the drooping hearts of 
His faithful ones, dispel all shadows, clear up 
all doubts, and chase awav all sorrows, is at 
hand. 

Observe how skilfully the writer has combined 
in this Collect the two lines of Advent medita- 
tion, the retrospect of the first with the anticipa- 
tion of the second Advent, and how judiciously 
he has thrown each into high relief by its vivid 
contrast with the other. " Jesus Christ came to 
visit us in great humility;" "He shall come again 
in Hin glorious Majesty to judge both the quick and 
dead." And to this contrast between the " great 
humilit}^ " and the " glorious Majesty " our Lord 
Himself called the attention of the Jewish San- 
hedrim by a single word, the force of which es- 
capes the cursor}^ reader, and sometimes per- 
plexes the more thoughtful one. When adjured 
by the high priest to tell them whether He was 
the Christ, the Son of God, He replies, "Thou 
hast said " (an affirmation of His Messiahship 
and Divine Sonship); "nevertheless I say unto 
you, Hereafter shall ye see the Son of man sit- 
ting on the right hand of power, and coming in 
the clouds of heaven." This pregnant "never- 
theless " has been the theme of many pieces of 
Christian hymnology; but nowhere has its force 
been more tersely or simply brought out than 
in the majestic Collect before us. 

Observe, finall}^, that this is iDerhajDS the most 
doctrinal of all the Collects, being indeed in 



34 THE FIRST SUNDAY IN ADVENT. 

itself a short Apostles' Creed; for here we have 
the Divine Sonship of Christ; His birth into this 
world, nay (implicitly), His sufferings and death 
too (for were not they the climax of His humilia- 
tion ?) ; His return from the right hand of God 
(inferring his previous resurrection and ascen- 
sion); His judgment of the quick and dead; and, 
finally, the resurrection of the body and the life 
everlasting. Add to which that, in the " Give us 
grace," there is the clearest recognition of the 
work of God the Holy Ghost. — What then shall 
we learn from the fact that this, the first Collect 
of the Christian Year, is also the most doctrinal ? 
This lesson, at all events, wUl not be amiss nor 
unsuitable to our times, that the whole structure 
of Christian Prayer is built upon doctrine; that 
to cut away dogma — i. e., the definite statement 
of doctrine — from prayer, is to cut the very nerve 
and sinew which gives prayer its power of move- 
ment; for prayer, while indeed it is an affection 
of the heart, is not a mere sentiment, but a sen- 
timent arising from the belief of some Divine 
truth. Trsbjer is nothing else than the voice of 
faith apprehending that truth, — taking that truth 
to itself. 



THE SECOND SUNDAY IN ADVENT. 35 



Efje $econti $untrau in ^tifacnt. 

Blessed Lord, wlio lias caused all lioly Scriptures to he 
written for our learning; Grant that tee may in such 
wise hear them, read, mark; learn, and inwardly 
digest them, that by patience, and comfort of thy holy 
Word, we may embrace, and ever holdfast the blessed 
hope of everlasting life, which thou hast given us in 
our Saviour Jesus Christ. Ameu. 

nr^^HIS Collect, like the preceding one, is due 
-L to our Eeformers, and first made its ap- 
pearance in 1549. Even if we did not know this, 
we might augur it from the family likeness which 
the two Collects have to one another. Both are 
built upon passages in their resj^ective Ex)istles. 
Both cite the very words of the passages on which 
they are based, openly proclaiming their relation- 
ship to it. Each of them fills up a gap in the 
cycle of teaching through which the Collects lead 
us. " Now is the accej)ted time" is a thought of 
a very quickening character, and one which it is 
very important to bring before the mind in prayer. 
It is brought before the mind forcibly by the 
" now in the time of this mortal life " of the first 
Collect. And surely, that there should be among 
the Collects a prayer bearing upon our right use 
of the icritlen Word of God was urgently needed 
in a Prayer Book for the Keformed Church; and 
here we have it in a Collect for the right use of 
" all holy Scriptures." It was a great void while 



36 THE SECOND SUNDAY IN ADVENT. 

it lasted. Cranmer and his colleagues deserve 
our warmest thanks for having filled it up. 

"Blessed Lord." This is the only prayer in 
'the whole Book of Common Praj^er, the invoca- 
tion of which runs in this style. The English 
word "blessed," as applied to God, is the trans- 
lation of two entirely different Greek words, one 
of which is never used in the New Testament of 
any but God. This latter word, thus limited in 
its application, means that God is blessed by all 
creation as being the fountain of all goodness, 
wisdom and power; that all His creatures, as it 
is said in the hundredth Psalm, " speak good of 
His Name." The other word, when apjDlied to 
God, as is the case twice only (and both times in 
the 1st Epistle to Timothy), indicates simply the 
beauty and glory of His character in itself, with- 
out glancing at any recognition of it by His 
creatures. It is very frequently used of men 
who are endowed by grace with some excellence 
of character, and is also used of the "blessed 
hope " of everlasting life, which we are exhorted 
to " look for," and which is spoken of at the end 
of the Collect. So that we have in this short 
prayer a " Blessed Lord" and a "blessed hope," 
the first being the ground and author of the sec- 
ond, and, as such, called "the God of hope." 
This first word, thus made to echo again at the 
end as the keynote of the strain of prayer, is not 
without its interest. 

"Who hast caused dl holy Scripture to be 



THE SECOND SUNDAY IN ADVENT. 37 

written for our learning" (or instruction). A 
glance at the context of the j^assage, as it stands 
in the Epistle to the Romans," will show that 
the words " all " and " our " are emphatic. 

In this opening of our Collect, the first j)oint 
brought out respecting Scripture is ?7.s designed 
pertinence to oin^selves. Written long ages ago, 
and addressed in the first instance to persons in 
circumstances in which we can never be X)laced, 
the Holy Scriptures yet have an intended refer- 
ence to our characters, our wants, our trials. 
Not intended, of course, on the part of the hu- 
man writers; but most assuredly intended on the 
part of Him who inspired them. The}^ are "writ- 
ten," says Lord Bacon, " to the thoughts of men, 
and to the succession of all ages, with a foresight 
of all heresies, contradictions, differing estates of 
the church, yea, and particularly of the elect." 
And, accordingly, the first requisite for profiting 
by them is, that he who reads should recognize 
this designed pertinence of -them to himself; 
should, when he takes them up, feel that his cir- 
cumstances and needs have been foreseen by the 
Divine Insj)irer, and that somewhere in this vol- 
ume is a message addressed to hunself, which he 
should ^^ray may find him out in the depths of 
his heart and conscience. 

" Grant that we may in such wise hear them, 
read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them." 
The different verbs are so arranged as to give 
the idea of a gradual progress from a suj^erficial 
acquaintance ^Yith. the Holy Scriptures to the pro- 



38 THE SECOND SUNDAY IN ADVENT. 

foundest reception of them in the inner man. 
"Hearing" and "reading" are referred to sep- 
arately, which perhaps we may regard as an his- 
torical note, indicating the date of the composi- 
tion. For, at the time when this Collect was 
drawn up, the case was a very common one in- 
deed of those who, while they could " hear " the 
Scriptures read, could not (either from want of 
education, or fi'om scarcity of Bibles) "read" 
them for themselves. Those were days, when 
the people of the parish, stimulated partly by 
curiosity to know its contents, partly by a sin- 
cere desire for some acquaintance with God's 
Word, gathered around the lectern in the 
church, to which the great black-letter Bible 
was chained, and listened to the reading of it by 
the villao-e schoolmaster. Our " hearino- " of the 

O O 

Scriptures nowadaj'-s is mostly confined to hear- 
ing them read in the Church Service; and how 
listless, alas! has that hearing become, when it 
might be a real' means of grace. The word 
"mark," indicates simple attention to what is 
read; and it is closety connected with the next 
word " learn," inasmuch as marking leads on to 
learning; it is only by. marking that we can learn 
to any purpose. The Scriptures, in order to their 
due operation, must be lodged in the memory. 
But if we are duly to j)i'ofit by them, another 
and more difficult mental effort must follow upon 
attention; a mental effort for which attention pre- 
pares the way and lays the foundation — thought. 
It is thought by which we compare Scri23ture 



THE SECOND SUNDAY IN ADVENT. 39 

with Scripture. This thought stands to the mind 
in the same relation in which the faculty of di- 
gestion does to the bod}^ — it is the means by 
which nourishment is assimilated and made to 
recruit the frame. And so our Reformers have 
called it with an admirable appropriateness " in- 
ward digestion " — " Grant that we may in such 
wise inicardhj diged them." 

And now in the close of the Collect is brought 
out its significance in connection with the Eccle- 
siastical Season; — "that by patience, and com- 
fort of th}^ holy Word, we ma}^ embrace, and 
ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlast- 
ing life." The words "blessed hope" are taken 
from the second chapter of St. Paul's Epistle to 
Titus, where they are closely associated with 
the Saviour's Second Advent; "Looking for that 
blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the 
great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ." The 
"blessed hope" cannot be fully reahzed before 
"the glorious appearing." The "patience" is 
" the patient waiting for Christ," into which St. 
Paul praj's that the hearts of the Thessalonians 
may be directed, the patience "unto the coming 
of the Lord" to which St. James exhorts. The 
" comfort " is that assurance of his coming, and 
of its nearness to us, Avhich the Scriptures so 
often give, and by which they confirm and quick- 
en our hope. OW Simeon, who waited " for the 
consolation of Isi'ael," Joseph of Arimathea, " who 
also himself waited for the kingdom of God," 
had the hope of the First Advent nourished in 



40 THE SECOND SUNDAY IN ADVENT. 

them by the Scriptures of the Old Testament. 
And we, by the use of the whole Sacred Volume, 
must have the hope of the Second Advent nour 
ished and confirmed in us. Thus the subject of 
this Collect, if given in full, is the y^iglit use of Holy 
Scripture, as a means of preparing for the Second 
Advent. 

Unlike most Collects, it is not explicitly offered 
through the Mediator, although, of course, that 
is implied. A different turn is given to the con- 
clusion, which runs not as usual, " through Jesus 
Christ our Lord," but ""in our Saviour Jesus 
Christ." This, like the invocation, is peculiar to 
this Collect, and is a very significant variation on 
the ordinary formula. " The hope which thou 
hast given us in our Saviour Jesus Christ;" 
apart from Him the hope is the baseless fabric of 
a dream. And therefore, when God is called 
" our Saviour " by St. Paul, the Lord Jesus 
Christ is called in the same sentence "our 
hope ; " His return (after preparing a place 
for His people), to take them to Himself, being 
the Christian's great point of hope in the future; 
for " Christ in you," as the same apostle says to 
the Colossians, is "the hope of glory." 

Thus, in one of the Advent Collects, the usual 
expression of faith in Christ with which our 
prayers are closed, is most .appropriately ex- 
changed for an expression of hope in Him. For 
the grace of hope is pre-eminently the Advent 
grace. 



THE THIRD SUNDAY IN ADVENT. 41 



STJje Ei)trt( Suntrag in ^tifacnt. 

Lord Jesu Christ, loho at thy first coming didst send 
thy messenger to j^repare thy icay before thee; Grant 
that the ministers and stewards of thy mysteries may 
likemse so j)repare and make ready thy way, hy 
turning the hearts of tlie disobedient to the icisdoni of 
the just, that at thy second coming to judge the icorld 
ice may he found an acceptable people in thy sight, 
who livest and reignest with the Father and the Holy 
Spirit, ever one God, icorld without end. Amen. 

THIS is the first of four Collects, wliich were 
drawn up in connection with the Savoy 
Conference in 1G61, the other three being the 
Collects for St. Stephen's Day, for the Sixth Sun- 
day after the Epiphan}^, and for Easter Even. A 
glance at these four praj^ers shows that they are 
all struck from the same die, and that the author 
(probably Cosin, Bishop of Durham,) followed 
as his model rather the Collects framed at the 
Reformation in 1549 than those of the early Office . 
Books. 

Our Collect was substituted by Cosin and his 
colleagues for a much shorter and quite unob- 
jectionable one, in which our Lord was besought 
to "give ear to our praj^ers," and "b}" His 
"gracious visitation" to "hghten the darkness 
of our heart." The great merit of the new Col- 
lect is that it introduces a new idea, which is not 
only most valuable in itself, but also carries on, 
and beautifully dovetails in with, the train of 



42 THE THIRD SUNDAY IN ADVENT. 

thought which runs through the series of Advent 
Collects. In the j^rs^ Collect we pray God to give 
us grace to prepare ourselves for the dawn of the 
Second Advent. Holy Scripture, which, rightly 
used, will fortify us with patience until the Ad- 
vent, and give us comfort in the hope of its ap- 
pearing, is the subject of the second Collect. And 
what other means are given us of preparing 
for the second Advent? The Christian minis- 
try rightly exercised; to which, moreover, our 
thoughts are drawn by the fact that the third 
week in Advent is an Ember week, in prepara- 
tion for the fourth Sunday, on which Holy Orders 
are administered, and laborers sent forth into 
the Lord's vineyard. This, then, is the great fun- 
damental thought of the third Collect, — ^that Chris- 
tian ministers are called to be pioneers of the 
Second Advent, clearing the way, and preparing 
the minds of the people for the Lord's appearing 
in glorious majesty, as St. John the Baptist cleared 
the wa}" for His appearing in great humilit}". 

" Grant that the ministers and stewards of thy 
mysteries." Now pray observe the connection 
in which those words occur in the First Epistle 
to the Corinthians. "Let a man so account of 
us as of the ministers of Christ; " ' the stress should 
be laid on the word ministers, which, according 
to the derivation of the Greek word in the origi- 
inal,^ means a rower in a galley, who takes the 
time from an officer appointed to give it, and re- 
ceives his orders from the captain of the ship. 

1 1 Cor. iii. 22, and iv. 1. ^ vxt/perv^- 



THE THIRD SUNDAY IN ADVENT. 43 

" We, Christian ministers," he would say, " are 
only rowers in the Church's galley; our Ca2:>tain 
who gives us our orders, our Officer who gives 
us the time by His voice or by signs, our Pilot 
who steers the bark whithersoever He lists, while 
we only supply the brute force which propels it, 
is Christ." Again, " stewai^ds of the mysteries of 
God." A. steward or housekeeper is only a dis- 
penser of another man's stores; the stores do not 
belong to him. So Christian ministers are mere 
stewards, dispensing to Christian people not the 
inferences and conjectures of their own minds, 
but the Word and Sacraments of God, with which 
at their ordination they are solemnly entrusted. 

But hojo are Christian ministers to fulfil the 
office of pioneers for the Second Advent, as John 
fulfiUed it for the First? What must they 
do, or aim at doing, in order to prepare and 
make ready the way of the Lord? "By turning 
the hearts of the disobedient to the wisdom of 
the just." This is a quotation which comes in 
the last resort from the Prophet Malachi, and is 
another form of saying, " he shall turn the heart 
of the children to their fathers." But what au- 
thority have we for departing from the very words 
of the prophet, and substituting an equivalent 
phrase? We have the authority — not a very 
mean one — of the angel Gabriel. It is not the 
seventy Alexandrian translators of the Old Tes- 
tament, but an angel (speaking to Zacharias the 
priest), who has given this turn to the Hebrew 
text. The " fathers " are the forefathers of the 



44 THE THIRD SUNDAY IN ADVENT. 

Jews, tlie godly Jews of olden time, Abraham, 
Moses, David, and the rest, who desired to see 
the things which Christ's disciples saw, but did 
not see them. Their descendants at the time of 
Christ — Pharisees, Sadducees, and the rest — were 
a degenerate race, altogether unworthy of so no- 
ble an ancestry. But the coming of John in the 
spirit and power of Elijah should turn the hearts 
of the children to the fathers, i. e., lead them 
round to the view of things which their ances- 
ters took; or, to adopt the archangel's beautiful 
paraphrase, will " turn the hearts of the disobe- 
dient " (here, perhajDS, the word should be rather 
rendered "unbelieving") "to the wisdom of 
the just," give them that insight into the mean- 
ing of their own Scriptures, that wisdom to see 
Christ in them, which their forefathers, the old 
righteous Jews, had. 

Such is, I believe, the original meaning of the 
words cited. But what do they mean in the 
application of them made by the Collect to 
Christian ministers, as pioneers of the Second 
Advent? It is by the opening the eyes of the 
people to the evil and danger of sin, and to the 
freeness and fulness of Christ's redemption; in 
short, by bringing them to the knowledge of 
God in Christ, which is "the wisdom of the 
just," and giving them "the spirit of wisdom 
and revelation in the knowledge of Him," that 
Christian ministers will fulfil the pioneer's office, 
and prej)are and make ready the Lord's way in 
the hearts of men. 



THE THIRD SUNDAY IN ADVENT. 45 

We have been so taken up with the thoughts 
in the body of the Collect that we have hitherto 
passed over its oj^ening, which yet challenges 
particular observation. " O Lord Jesu Christ." 
Of all our present Collects only three (the pres- 
ent one, with that for St. Stephen's Day, and 
that for the First Sunday in Lent) are addressed 
to oiu* Blessed Lord. There was a reason for 
this rarity of address to the Saviour in the Col- 
lects used at the Holy Communion, which we 
give in the words of Canon Liddon: " Certainly, 
in the greatest public act of Christian worship, 
the Eucharist, the rule was, as defined at Carthage, 
to addi'ess prayer to the Father. This rule, how- 
ever, resulted fi'om the specific behef of the ancient 
Church respecting the Eucharist, namely, that it 
was a sacrificial presentation of Christ, once for 
all sacrificed on Calvary, to the Eternal Father." 
This essentially sacrificial character of the Eu- 
charist, then, is the cause of the infi^equency of 
direct addresses to Christ in the service of the 
Holy Communion. But every rule has its ex- 
ceptions. The Chui'ch before the Reformation 
had three Communion Collects, as our own Prayer 
Book has three, addressed directl}' to our Blessed 
Lord. And these, and the numerous other in- 
vocations of Christ which are found elsewhere in 
our Prayer Book, are to be regarded as definite 
dogmatic assertions, on the part of the Church, 
of the Divinity of our Lord and Saviour. 

What follows in the Collect is seen, when care- 
fully looked at, to be another affirmation of our 



46 THE THIRD SUNDAY IN ADVENT. 

Lord's Divinity. " Wlio at tliy first coming didst 
send thy messenger to prepare tliy way before 
thee." This is a citation from the Book of the 
Prophet Malachi, with the very same alteration 
of the phraseology, which our Lord Himself in 
the first and third Gospels exp^'essly sanctions 
(see St. Matt. xi. 10; St. Luke vii. 27) and which 
the Holy Spirit, speaking by St. Mark (i. 2), sanc- 
tions also. The prophet's words are those of 
Christ Himself; "Behold I will send my messen- 
ger, and he shall prepare the way before me." 
" He who speaks " (says Dr. Pusey in his " Com- 
mentary on the Minor Prophets") "is He who 
should come, God the Son. . . . He &:peaks here 
in His Divine Nature, as the Lord who should 
send, and who should Himself come in our flesh. 
In the Gospel, when He loas come in the flesh, 
He speaks not of His own Person, but of the Fa- 
ther, ' since indescribable are the operations ol 
the Trinity, and what the One doth, the other 
Two do, since the Three are of oiie nature, power, 
and oj^eration.' " Accordingly, our Lord, in quot- 
ing the words of the prophet, puts them into 
the mouth of the Father by a ehaoa^'e of the pro- 
nouns: "Behold, I send my messenger before 
THY face, which shall prepare thy way before 
thee" (St. Matt. xi. 10). " This, is," says Dean 
Alford, "if such w^ere needed, no mean indica- 
tion of His own eternal and co-equal Godhead." 
It is well that so early in the series of the Col- 
lects we should meet with an affirmation so ex- 
plicit of the doctrine of our Lord's Divinity, 



THE FOURTH SUNDAY IN ADVENT. 47 

which is a mainstay of our faith, since the power, 
efficacy, and meritoriousness of His atoning work 
are bound up with it. And how beautifully does 
the act of adoration at the end of the Collect 
chime in with the assertion of His Deity in the 
early part, when we formally ascribe to Him His 
place in the ever-blessed Trinit}^; "who livest 
and reignest with the Father, and the Holy 
Spirit, ever one God, world without end." 



Lord, raise up, -we pray tliee, iliy power, and come 
among ics, and loitli great might succor us; thai 
whereas, through our sins and ivickedness, we are 
sore let and hindered in running the race that is set 
before us, thy bountiful grace and mercy may speed- 
ily help and deliver us, through the satisfaction of thy 
Son our Lord, to tohom, with thee and the Holy 
Ghost, be honor and glory, u'orld 'without end. 
Amen. 

Excita, qucEsumus, Doinine, potentiam tuam, et veni, et 
magna nobis virtute succurre, ut auxilium gratice 
tuce, quod nostra peccata p)rcepediunt, indulgentia 
tuce propitiationis accelerei. Qui vivis (Miss. Sivn., 
Col. 40). 

THE Collect for the Fourth Sunday in Ad- 
vent is the first in the series which is trans- 
lated from the old Latin Offices. And it is, or 
perhaps I should say it was, when first made, 
nearly a literal translation. 

" O Lord, raise up (we pray thee) thy power." 



48 THE FOURTH SUNDAY IN ADVENT. 

The words are those of the eightieth Psalm, and. 
we will glance at them in their original context. 
"Thou that dwellest between the cheriibims, 
shine forth. Before Ephraim and Benjamin and 
Manasseh atir ztp thy drength " (the words used in 
the Vulgate, or Latin translation of the Scrip- 
tures, are exactly the same which the translators 
have here rendered "J?aise itp ^/i?/po?t'e?'") "and 
come and save us." Let us not overlook the in- 
teresting reference to the order of Israel's march 
in the wilderness. The three tribes descended 
from Bachel marched immediately in the rear of 
the ark. In front of Ephraim, Benjamin, and 
Manasseh the ark was carried by the Kohathites. 
Hence, if there had been a literal shining forth 
of the Shechinah from between the cherubims, 
which bent over the ark (which of course there 
could not be, as the ark was carefully covered up 
before removal) the glorious light would have 
flashed full in the faces of Ephraim, Benjamin, 
and Manasseh. Now the Lord Jesus Christ is 
the true Ark and Mercy-seat, of whom St. John 
says that "the Word was made flesh, and dwelt" 
(the original word means " tabernacled," dwelt 
in our nature as in a tent) "' among us, (and we 
beheld His gior^^ the glory as of the only-begot- 
ten of the Father)." We see then the appropri- 
ateness of this passage of the Psalms in con- 
nection with the First Advent. But still more 
appropriate is it, I think, in connection with the 
Second. We pray our Lord to " raise up " His 
"power, and come among us." Therefore to say 



THE FOURTH SUNDA V IN ADVENT. 49 

to Him, "Raise up thy power," is Tirtually to 
say, " O thou that earnest once in great humility, 
and wast crucified through Aveakness, come again 
now in thy glorious Majesty; let us see thee sit- 
ting at the right hand of power, and coming in 
the clouds of heaven." "And come"; as much 
as to say, " Come, Lord, in thine own person, and 
no longer in that of thy messengers the prophets." 
This " come " has been from a very early j^eriod 
one great keynote of the Church's Offices imme- 
diately before Christmas. From the seventeenth 
to the twenty-third of December (inclusive) used 
to be sung a beautiful series of anthems, each of 
them praying Christ, under some one or other 
of His Scriptural designations, to co')ne and per- 
form one of His covenant offices for us: "O 
Wisdom, come to teach "; "O Adonai, come to 
redeem"; "O Root of Jesse, come to redeem "; 
"O Key of David, come and deliver the cap- 
tive"; "O Dayspring from on high, come and il- 
luminate"; "O King of the Gentiles, come and 
save"; "O Emmanuel, come to save us." The 
pulses of the Church's heart beat quicker with 
desire and anticipation, as the nearness of the 
Festival of the First Advent reminds her of 
the Second, wdiich itself is nearer now than 
when we beheved. 

" Come among us." It is worthy of note that 
the " among us " was inserted by our Reformers 
in 1549 in translating the Collect. It leads us to 
the thought that " the Lord Jesus went in and 
out among us " for three years, " beginning from 



50 THE FOURTH SUNDAY IN ADVENT. 

the baptism of John, unto that same day that He 
was taken up from us." 

"And with great might succor us." In the 
passage of the Psalm, on which this part of the 
jorayer is founded, the words are, " Stir up th}'- 
strength and come and saue us." The exact 
Scriptural phrase has been altered by the fram- 
ers of the Collect to "with great might succor 
us " ; a phrase which rather glances at the Sec- 
ond Coming, for Christ came in weakness when 
He first came. The thought of both Advents 
runs through the Advent Collects, now one be- 
ing upj^ermost, now the other, and both being 
interlaced like the woof and warp in a web. 

" That whereas, through our sins and wicked- 
ness, we are sore let and hindered in running 
the race that is set before us." The clause, " in 
running the race that is set before us," was in- 
serted at the last review of the Book of Common 
Prayer in 1662. It furnishes a good instance of 
the way in which the framers of the Reformed 
Prayer-Book sought to make the references to 
Scripture, which already existed in the old Of- 
fices, more explicit and unmistakable. The word 
in the original Latin prayer translated " hinder- 
ing " exj)resses an obstruction thrown in the way 
of the feet. There is, therefore, in the word, a 
laieAit reference to the famous passage to the He- 
brews, "Let us lay aside every weight, and the 
sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run 
with patience the race that is set before us." 
This reference Bishop Cosin and his colleagues 



i 



THE FOURTH SUNDAY IN ADVENT. 51 

have made explicit, by inserting the clause "in 
running the race that is set before us." The 
imagery, as is well known, is that of the ancient 
footrace. No one who carries a weight in his 
hand, or has an}' encumbrance from his raiment, 
can expect to win. Besetting sin is the encum- 
bering weight, the entangling raiment, which 
clogs our moYements in the heavenward race. 
Somehow or other the weight must be laid aside, 
if we are ever to claim the victor's wreath. Yes ! 
somehow or other. But the Collect does not 
leave the method of deliverance thus vague and 
undefined. 

" That thy hountiful grace and mercy may speed- 
ily helj) and deliver us." The word " help " was 
inserted at the last Review, evidently by way of 
correspondence with the word "grace" in the 
earlier part of the clause. What we must look 
to, in order to our being freed from the obstruc- 
tions of besetting sin, is Grod's mercy in Christ 
delivering us from its guilt, and God's grace in 
Christ helping us against its power. And the 
word implies our own earnest efforts. There is 
no possibility of being extricated from the quag- 
mire of besetting sin save by our own efforts co- 
operating with Divine Grace. 

" Through the satisfaction of thy Son our Lord." 
The needful grace and mercy are granted through 
this satisfaction, embracing under the term " sat- 
isfaction," not only the atonement of Christ's 
death, but also the righteousness of His life, — all 
the claims of God's law upon sinners whether for 



52 CHRISTMAS DAY. 

penalty or obedience. This is the beautiful form 
under which, at the close of our Collect, the close 
of the second Scriptural passage on which it is 
founded is presented to us. He that offers 
j)ra3^er through the satisfaction of God's Son 
our Lord, depending on that alone, is in good 
truth "looking unto Jesus the author and fin- 
isher of our faith." And this whole prayer is a 
looking unto Him, in hope of His Second Advent, 
and in faith of the benefits brought to us by His 
First. Those who find themselves " sore let and 
hindered " in running " the way of His command- 
ments," b}'- inborn corruption or sinful habits, 
shall, if they patiently wait on Him in faith and 
hope, in due time find relief. 



ffifiristmas: Bag* 

Ahnighty God, rcJio Tiasi given us thy only-hegoUen Sou 
to take our nature upon Him, and as at this time to 
be horn of a pure Virgin; Grant that we being re- 
generate, and made thy children by adoption and 
grace, may daily be renewed by thy Holy Spirit; 
through the same our Lord Jesus Christ, who liveiJi 
and reigneth with thee and the same Spirit, ever one 
God, world without end. Amen. (a.d. 1549). 

IN the Missal of Sarum provision is made for 
three masses on Christmas Da}^ — one at cock- 
crow, one at break of dawn, and one in full day. 
Our present Epistle and Grospel are taken from 
the third of these masses, and it is not without 



CHRISTMAS DAY. 53 

interest to consider why the Collect was dis- 
carded by our Reformers. In an English trans- 
lation it runs thus: "Grant, we beseech thee, 
Almighty God, that the new birth of tli}' only- 
begotten Son through the liesh may set free 
those who are held fast by the old bondage 
under the yoke of siu." There is nothing here 
superstitious or unsound in doctrine, but the 
thought is a little too far-fetched; and on so 
very high a festival as Christmas a more explicit 
and palpable reference to the great fact com- 
memorated was thought desirable. Oui* present 
Collect, one that does the highest possible credit 
to the composers, has the one thought of the 
birth of Christ running through it. This birth, 
it is intimated, must be repeated in the Chris- 
tian. The exj^erience of Christ our Head must 
be ours throughout, we too must be born again, 
just as Christ, " begotten of his Father before all 
worlds," underwent a new birth in the flesh. 

"Almighty God, who hast given us thy only- 
begotten Son to take our nature upon Him, and 
as at this time to be born of a pure Virgin." In 
the orioinal draught of the Collect the words 
had stood thus: "■ iMs day to be born of a pure 
Virgin." Cosin, at the last revision, substituted 
"as at this time to be born"; — a minute altera- 
tion, but not an insignificant one. For, not to 
speak of the uncertainty whether Christmas Day 
is the real historical anniversary of our Lord's 
bii'th, " this time " reminds us, as " this day " 
would not do, that the Lord appeared exactly 



54 CHRISTMAS DAY. 

when, in the counsels of Eternal Wisdom, ^' the 
fulne^8 of the time was come." 

Observe, He was Grod's Son then, before He 
was born, or "made of a woman"; God's Son, 
not only as " conceived by the Holy Ghost, born 
of the Yirgin Mary "; but as begotten of the Fa- 
ther before all time. 

" Grant that we being regenerate, and made 
thy children by adoption and grace. "^ Our Re- 
formers clung to the ancient and universal phrase- 
ology of the Church from the earliest times, in 
representing all the baptized as regenerate, and 
made God's children by adoption and grace. 
Our blessed Lord speaks of baptism as a birth 
of water and of the Spirit. In His own " new 
birth " the Spirit oj^erated, inasmuch as He was 
"conceived by the Holy Ghost"; but there was 
also a human and earthly instrument employed in 
producing the effect^-" a pure Yirgin. " Similarly 
the Spirit is the prime agent in our new birth; 
but there is also a human and earthly instrument 
which the Spirit condescends to employ — pure 
water. "Made thy children by adoption and 
grace." By "grace" here is not meant, accord- 
ing to the popular conception of the word, an 
influence upon the mind of man, but simply free 
favor. It was a free favor that God gave His 
Son to take upon Him the nature common to all 
mankind, and in that nature " to make reconcili- 
ation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting 
righteousness." It is a free favor to individuals 
that they are born in a Christian land, and have 



CHRISTMAS DAY. 55 

the merits of Christ applied to them b}' the Sac- 
rament of Baptism, and receive the motions of 
His Spirit with the earliest dawn of conscious- 
ness. But let it not be imagined for a moment 
that this is all, or anything more than the begin- 
ning of, the work of our sanctification. Too often 
the vital spark communicated in Baptism is over- 
laid and smothered by neglect of religious educa- 
tion on the 2^art of parents, and by frivolities and 
follies and youthful lusts on the part of the baj)- 
tized. In that case the spark which has been, it 
may be, latent, and never quite extinct, must be 
made to burst forth vividly and brilliantly from 
the embers of worldliness and sensuality, under 
which it has long smouldered. This process is 
often called conversion; but, strictly speaking, 
it is but the beoinnino' of the work so called, 
and needs to be carried on and perfected. It 
would probably be better to call it renewal, 
and thus to cling as closely as possible to the 
phraseology of Scripture — "the washing of re- 
generation, and renewing of the Holy Ghost, 
which He shed on us abundantly through Jesus 
Christ our Saviour." It is interesting to ob- 
serve how studiously this work of " renewing " is 
spoken of as mental, as a process upon the con- 
science, heart, and moral powers. The new birth, 
like natural birth, is something done upon us, — 
a process external to ourselves, in which we are 
patients rather than agents. Renewal, on the 
other hand, is a work done in us and with us; by 
the Spirit, indeed, as the prime Mover in it, but 



56 CHRISTMAS DAY. 

still with the full and hearty co-operation of our 
own wills. And hence we have such exhortations 
as these — "Be renewed in the spirit of your mind;" 
"Be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind; " 
— texts, in which both the internal character of 
renewal, and the power of the human will co- 
operating with the Holy Spirit to bring it about, 
are clearly recognized. In the latter of them is 
wrapped up another lesson on the nature of re- 
newal. The word rendered "transformed" is 
the same which is used in the Gospels to de- 
note our Saviour's Transfiguration; for, indeed, 
renewal is mental and spiritual transfiguration. 
The features and person of the Saviour under- 
went no change in the Transfiguration; but were 
simply illuminated by a strong light which burst 
forth from within Him, so that they Avere ren- 
dered transparent, and seemed no longer linea- 
ments of flesh and blood. Similarly the moral 
and intellectual structure of an individual is not 
altered in renewal, but every part of it is irradi- 
ated with the light of grace; it is the same natu- 
ral character made heavenly, or, in other words, 
" meet for the inheritance of the saints in light." 
And last, not least, renewal is a process so far 
from being achieved at once that it must go on 
daity, — "may daily be renewed by thy Holy 
Spirit; " "though our outward man perish, yet 
the inward man is renewed day by day." It is 
analogous to that gradual replacement of old 
particles of matter by new ones, which is ever 
going on in the process of natural growth by 



ST. STEPHEN'S DAY. 57 

means of food, exercise, and the inhaling of air. 
It is a process imperceptible at the moment, and 
capable of being discerned only by the compari- 
son of one period with another. And since, in 
all healthy spiritual growth, the process of re- 
newal goes on daily, it might be at bed-time a 
suitable question for self-examination whether, 
during the day past, our inward man has been 
renewed; whether this day we have received and 
digested the heavenly manna of God's Word, 
whether we have practised real prayer, the one 
exercise of the spii*itual life; and whether we 
have breathed, or even sought to breathe, the 
free fresh atmosj^here of communion with God. 



Grant, Lord, that, in all our sufferings here upon 
earth for the testimony of thy truth, ice may stedfastly 
look up to heaven, and by faith behold the glory that 
shall be revealed; and, being filled with the Holy 
Ghost, may learn to love and bless our persecutors 
by the example of thy first martyr. Saint Stephen, 
icho prayed for his murderers to thee, blessed Je- 
sus, who slandest at the right hand of God to succor 
all those that suffer for thee, our only Mediator and 
Advocate. Amen. 

THIS Collect, though the nucleus of it exists 
in the old Latin OjBfices; had so many new 
ideas imported into it by the Eevisers of 1662, 
that they may fairly be called the authors of it. 



58 ST. STEPHEN'S DAY. 

The implication that we may suffer nowadays 
for the testimony of God's truth; the happy idea 
that we may behold with the eyes of faith the 
same glory which Stephen beheld with those of 
sight; the reference not only to the martyr's dy- 
ing prayer, but to the power which enabled him 
to offer it, " he being filled with the Holy Ghost; " 
the direct invocation of the Lord Jesus at the 
end of prayer; the notice of the fact that He ap- 
peared standing to St. Stephen, and the sug- 
gested explanation of it — all these are new; the 
prayer for grace to imitate St. Stephen's example 
in loving even our enemies, forms the whole of 
the comparatively meagre Collect which is found 
in the Missal of Sarum, which runs as follows, in 
Cranmer's translation of it: " Grant us, O Lord, 
to learn to love our enemies b}^ the example of 
thy martyr Saint Stephin, who prayed to thee for 
his persecutors: which livest and reignest," etc. 

" Grant, O Lord, that in all our sufferings here 
upon earth for the testimony of thy truth. " These 
words are no dead letter, even in an age and a 
country where dii-ect persecution for religious 
opinions has passed away. As the example of 
true Christians, quietly and consistently exhibited, 
cannot but condemn the world (that is, the circle 
of careless and irreligious people around us, high 
or low, rich or poor), the world will feel twitted 
by this implied censure on its ways, and is sure 
to retaliate by spite, or ridicule, or slander. 
Somehow or other, it is certain to show its dis- 
like and contempt. 



ST. STEPHEN'S BAY. 59 

" We may steclfastly look up to heaven, and by 
faith behold the glory that shall be revealed." 
Several texts are evidently running in the mind 
of the composer — " Faith is the evidence of things 
not seen," the eye of the -soul, wherewith we dis- 
cern such things; " Our light affliction, which is 
but for a moment, worketh for us a far more ex- 
ceeding and eternal weight of glory; while we 
look not at the things which are seen, but at the 
things which are not seen;" and again, "I reck- 
on that the sufferings of this jDresent time are not 
worthy to be compared with the glory which shall 
be revealed in us." One sees why Cosin has 
expunged these last words "in us," because the 
glory of God which Stej)hen saw was external to 
him, not within him. The gazing on Him by 
faith transfigures the soul; the gazing on Him 
by sight will transfigure the body. It is thus 
that glory " in us " will flow from glory external 
to us. 

"And, being filled with the Holy Ghost, ma}' 
learn to love and bless our persecutors." The 
lang'uage seems to imply the arduousness of this 
attainment in Christian virtue, as if the loving 
and blessing of .persecutors could not possibly be 
achieved without a very large measure of the 
Spirit's influence. We are reminded of the prayer 
of the Apostles, when their Lord enjoined them to 
forgive an erring brother, even if he tresjDassed 
against them seven times in a day: "Lord, in- 
crease our faith; " as much as to say, "It is only 
by a great strengthening of that principle, which 



60 ST. STEPHEN'S DAY. 

lifts man up above the world and tlie flesh, that 
we can extend our forgiveness of injuries so far." 
— "May learn to love." This "learn" is in the 
original Latin Collect, which Cosin has taken as 
his nucleus, and has so happily expanded. And 
the word is very significant. By the help of the 
Holy Ghost we must discipline ourselves by de- 
grees into the love of those who dislike, insult, 
and injure us. One method of discipline is by 
forcing ourselves to pray for them. Another, by 
not allowing ourselves to speak of their conduct 
more than is necessary; for the speaking of a 
wrong always aggravates and inflames it. A third 
is by doing definite acts of kindness; for our acts 
are always in our control, however little our feel- 
ings may be. — " To love and bless." Better than 
" love " alone, which is all that the Latin Collect 
has, if it were only that the reference to the Great 
Master's precept is thus made more explicit: 
" Love your enemies, bless them that curse you;" 
for love is a sentiment, blessing a word, and do- 
ing good an action. 

"By the example of thy first martyr. Saint 
Stephen, who prayed for his murderers to thee, 
O blessed Jesus." "Be ye followers of me," 
writes St. Paul, " even as I also am of Christ." 
St. Stephen followed, or was an imitator of, the 
Lord Jesus in his death, and very faithful he was 
to his model. When first beneath the impact of 
the nails His sacred blood was shed, " then said 
Jesus, Father, forgive them; for they know not 
what they do." Stephen's prayer for his mur- 



ST. STEPHEN'S DAY. 61 

derers before be fell asleej) in Jesus is but an 
echo of this, "Lord, lay not this sin to their 
charge." We pray for grace to follow Stephen 
in this particular in which he most remarkably 
followed Christ. 

" Who standest at the right hand of God to 
succor all those that suffer for thee, our only Me- 
diator and Advocate."' A meditation rather than 
a prayer; but surely it is a noble meditation, and 
a helpful and edifying one. The explanation 
which it gives of our Lord's appearing on that 
occasion in a standing posture is most interest- 
ing. To have appeared to Stephen sitting might 
have seemed to betoken a want of interest in his 
troubles; therefore the Lord has risen from His 
throne, as it were, to interfere on his behalf and 
give him His hand. And is there no sense 
in which He now appears to the eye of our 
faith, not sitting but standing ? Surely there is. 
"We have an advocate with the Father, Jesus 
Christ the righteous." No advocate ever sat 
down to plead; it is the judge who sits; the ad- 
vocate stands erect before him. We all deejDly 
need the Lord's succor in the way of advocacy, 
if in no other waj'. And very happily, therefore, 
the Collect closes with a glance at Christ's func- 
tion of pleading the cause of His people — " our 
only Mediator and Advocate." 



62 ST. JOHN THE EVANGELIST'S DAY. 



Merciful Lord, ice beseech thee to cast thy bright beams 
of light upon thy Church, that it being instructed by 
the doctrine of thy blessed Apostle and Evangelist 
Saint John, may so walk in tJie light of thy truth, 
that it may at length attain to everlasting life, through 
Jesus Christ our Lord. Ameu. 

Ecclesiam tuam, qucesumus, Domine, benignus illustra, 
ut beaii Johannis Aposioli tui et Evangelistce illumi- 
nata doctrinis, ad dona perveniat sempiterna. Per 
Bominum. (Miss. Sae,, Col. 65). 

THE warmest admirers of the prayers whicli 
are found in the old Latin Offices will be 
ready to admit that the Collect for St. John the 
Evangelist's Day was greatly improved by the 
Revisers of 1662; improved by having additional 
point and a practical turn given to it. The Col- 
lect, as literally translated by Cranmer in 1549, 
ran thus: "Merciful Lord, we beseech thee to 
cast thy bright beams of light upon thy Church: 
that it being lightened by the doctrine of thy 
blessed Apostle and Evangelist John may attain 
to thy everlasting gifts : through Jesus Christ our 
Lord." Comj)aring this with the Collect as it 
now stands, we see at once the inferiority of the 
old to the new. The old Collect had made men- 
tion only of two lights, the light of the Spirit 
and the light of the Word; the new one most 
aptly introduces a thu^d light, that of glory, or 
everlasting life, to which the first two lights are 



ST. JOHN THE EVANGELIST'S DAY. G3 

conducive. Then, again, the old Collect con- 
tained no direct allusion to Christian conduct. 
It was merely a prayer that God would en- 
lighten us by His Word and Sj^irit, and did not 
even insinuate that we must walk in the light 
thus shed upon us from heaven, if we desire to 
reach His gior}'. 

We have here, in the first place, a j^etition for 
the light of the Sj^irit. " Merciful Lord, we be- 
seech thee to cast thj^ bright beams of light u]3on 
thy Church," or, as the original is, " Graciously 
cast thy bright beams of hght upon thy Church, 
0, Lord, we beseech thee." What can God's 
shining in our hearts be but the light of the 
Holy Ghost, which there He sheds abroad ? At 
Pentecost God issued the same fiat in the world 
of spirit, which He had long centuries issued in 
the world of nature: "God said. Let there be 
light; and there was light." 

And do not omit to observe that the blessing- 
is supplicated, not directly for the individual, 
but for the Church: "Merciful Lord, we beseech 
thee to cast thy bright beams of light upon thy 
Church.'' The disciples were not scattered units, 
when God first cast His bright beams of Hght 
upon them; "they were all with one accord in 
one place ; " the sound as of a rushing mighty 
wind " filled all the house where they were sit- 
ting," and made " men to be one mind in " that 
"house"; in short, the Holy Ghost visited the 
disciples as a family. What an argument is this 
for common or united prayer— prayer made in the 



64 ST. JOHN THE EVANGELIST'S DAY. 

house of prayer, and where other members of the 
family are gathered together in the name of Jesus. 

" That it being instructed by the doctrine of 
thy blessed Apostle and Evangelist St. John." 
The Word of God is a light no less than His 
Spirit. " Thy Word is a lamp unto my feet, and 
a light unto my path." "The entrance of thy 
words giveth light; it giveth understanding unto 
the simple." All pretence to divine illumination, 
independently of the written Vv^ord of God, is 
pure fanaticism. 

It was '■'doctrines'' (or teachings) in the old 
Latin Collect. Cranmer changed it to the sin- 
gular {doctrine), and wisely so, it seems to me; 
for the singular expresses better the unity of St. 
John's teaching. In the first chapter of his Gos- 
pel he speaks of Jesus as " the true Light, which 
lighteth every man that cometh into the world," 
and in the first chapter of his first Epistle (ap- 
pointed at the Reformation to be read as the 
Epistle for St. John's Day, in lieu of a passage 
from Ecclesiasticus, which appears in the medi- 
aeval Offices) he says, " This is the message which 
we have heard of Him, and declare unto you, 
that God is light, and in Him is no darkness at 
all." The keystone of St. John's theology may 
be said to be God, and Christ as light. 

"That it may at length attain to everlasting 
life." Viewed in its essentials, the state of glory 
is the perfection of our nature, — that great end 
for which man was originally designed and con- 
structed; but which, in the order of God's coun- 



ST. JOHN THE EVANGELIST'S DAY. G5 

sel and providence, lie can only reach by degrees. 
The grub in the chrysalis state is so constructed 
as ultimately to become a butterfly; and man has 
powers and faculties in him, both physical and 
mental, which cannot possibly be developed fully 
under the conditions which the life that now is, 
animal and secular, lays uj)on him. The full de- 
velopment of these powers at the Resurrection is 
what is properly meant by the state of glory. 
But when a glimpse into this state of glor}'- is 
given us in the Holy Scrij^ture, the invariable 
accompaniment of it is a brilliant light — light 
enwraj)ping, encompassing, streaming forth from 
the jjerson. Thus the Transfiguration was a pre- 
sentment of our Lord in His glorified state. And 
when He is seen in the glorified state b}'' His be- 
loved Apostle, the description is that of a figure 
intei-penetrated by a brilliant light: "His head 
and His hairs were white like wool, as white as 
snow; and His eyes were as a flame of fire; and 
His feet like unto fine brass, as if they burned in 
a furnace .... and His countenance was as the 
sun shineth in his strength." 

May God bring us all to that great city, the 
holy Jerusalem, which has the glory of God, 
and which hath "no need of the sun, neither of 
the moon to shine in it: for the glory of God 
doth lighten it, and the lamb is the light there- 
of." And in order to this, may He dispose us to 
be faithful to the light of grace, faithful to the 
illumination of His Spirit, and to the direction 
of His Word. 



6G THE INNOCENTS' DAY 



Wc^z Eitnocents* Hag* 

Almighty God, loho out of the mouths of babes and 
sucldings hast ordained strength, and madest infants 
to glorify thee by their deaths; Mortify and hill all 
vices i7i us, and so strengthen us by thy grace, that 
by the innocency of our lives, and constancy of our 
faith even unto death, we may glorify thy Holy 
Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. 

Deus, cujus hodiernadie prceconium Innocenies mariyres 
non loquendo sedl moriendo confessi sunt; omnia in 
nobis vitiorum mala mortifica; ut fidem iuam quam 
lingua nostra loquitur, etiam moribus vitafateatur. 
Qui cum Beo Paire et Spiritu Sancto vivit et regnat 
per. (Miss. Sae., Col. 67.) 

WE liardly know whether to say that this 
Collect was made new at the last Re- 
vision in 1662 or not. On the one hand, the pe- 
tition of it, "Mortify and kill all vices in us," is 
found in the Prayer Book of 1549, where there is 
a faithful translation of the old Latin Collect.' 
On the other hand, a text from the Psalms, which 
in the Missal of Sarum formed the " Of&cium " 
(or, as we should say, the Introit) for Innocents' 
Day, has been woven with great appropriateness 
into the invocation of the Collect, and the whole 
of the aspiration is new. The point of the orig- 

' Almighty God, whose praise this day, the young iu- 
noceuts thy witnesses hath confessed, and shewed forth, 
not in speaking, but in dying; mortify and kill all vices in 
us, that in our conversation, our life may express thy faith, 
which with our tongues we do confess: through Jesus 
Christ our Lord. 



THE INNOCENTS' DAY. 67 

iual Collect was that, as the Innocents " confessed 
God, not by sj^eaking, but by dying," so we, by 
the mortification of our vices, might confess Him, 
not only with our lips but in our lives. The point 
of the present Collect is that, as the Innocents 
glorified God by death, so we may glorify Him 
by the innocency of our lives, to which is very 
properly added the constancy of our faith. 

" O Almight}" God, who out of the mouths of 
babes and sucklings hast ordaine^l strength." 
For this citation from the eighth Psalm we are 
indebted to the Revisers of 1662. It is a singu- 
larly happ}" citation; but it may be doubted 
whether persons in general ^ see how to aj)ply it. 
Probably the prevailing impression is that, like 
the clause which immediately follows, it is meant 
to aj^ply to the massacred babes of Bethlehem. 
It appears to me much easier and better to un- 
derstand it of the infant Saviour. Innocents' 
Day is the octave of Christmas, the third day 
after the Feast of the Nativity; we have not j^et 
lost sight of the holy Babe wrapped in swaddling 
clothes, and lying in the mang'er of the caravan- 
sera at Bethlehem. The subject of the eighth 
Psalm, read in the light thrown upon it by the 
NcAV Testament, is the wondrous condescension 
of God in becoming man for our sakes, in stoop- 
ing to be made a little lower than the angels. 
And as it is in infancy that we see man at his 
weakest, our Lord's condescension is esj^ecially 
glorified in His having become an infant, and 
having been exhibited as such to the Jews in the 



68 THE INNOCENTS' DAY. 

person of the Shepherds, to the Gentiles in the 
person of the "Wise Men. 

" And madest infants to glorify thee by their 
deaths." But how did these infants glorify God 
'by their deaths I Let us not pass from this asser- 
tion until we understand it. They glorified God 
by their deaths because their deaths contributed 
to work out His highest purpose. God's highest 
purpose is the salvation of His fallen creature 
man. This salvation could not be but by a Sa- 
vior, who in His life was to fulfil the righteous- 
ness, and in His death to submit to the curse, of 
the law. All the hopes and prospects of our 
race, therefore, were suspended on the Saviour's 
reaching manhood. Cut off in infancy, He could 
neither have obeyed the precept, nor submitted 
Himself to the curse. And, humanly speaking, 
He was on the very point of being cut off in in- 
fancy. If St. Joseph had not fled by night, next 
morning Herod's executioners would have been 
battering at his door, and demanding the Holy 
Child for slaughter. All the babes of Bethlehem, 
from two years old and under, were cruelly mas- 
sacred, in the hope of involving the new-born 
King. Is it asked why the life of the Holy Babe 
could not have been secured without any suffer- 
ing to these poor Innocents and their mothers ? 
Has not God all resources at His command? 
Could He not have struck Herod dead, or have 
made him relent of his cruel purpose at the last 
moment ? Such is not God's way. He does not 
interfere with the freedom of the human will. 



rilE INNOCENTS' DAY. 69 

He does not compel a man either to forbear from 
what is wrong, or to do what is right. And if 
these babes did suffer from the cruelt}^ of a 
tyrant, it was suffering for Christ's sake, it was a 
foreshadowing of martyrdom, and indeed an en- 
acting of it in one of its features. It was a sum- 
mons made by the Infant Saviour to infants, by 
one short sharp pang to pass into Paradise, and 
to behold for themselves, and not by their an- 
gels, the face of His Father which is in heaven. 

"Mortify and kiU all vices in us." If a dis- 
tinction is to be drawn between " mortify " and 
"kill" (two words which rej^resent one in the pe- 
tition of the original Collect), we must take " mor- 
tif}^ " to represent the gradual process of exter- 
minating the vices, and " kill " the ultimate result 
of the process, their death and final extinction. 
It is interesting to observe that God is here 
called upon to mortify the vices of our nature, 
whereas in the Scriptural passages bearing on 
the subject man is charged to do the work him- 
self: "Mortify therefore your members which are 
upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordi- 
nate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetous- 
ness, which is idolatry." The reconciliation is 
easy: God must work in chief, by granting us 
"the true circumcision of the Spirit ": but none 
the less must man's will work, with and under 
God, in the way of self-denial, self-discipline, and 
self-control. 

" That by the innocency of our lives." The 
antitheses of the Latin Collect are not quite lost; 



70 • THE INNOCENTS' DAY. 

here is a fragment of them. The babes of Beth 
lehem glorified God by their deaths. "We are to 
glorify Him by the innocency of our lives. Christ 
would have His disciples become as little chil- 
dren, and He calls them babes, and thanks 
the Father for having revealed to such babes, 
and not to the wise and prudent, the great 
tilings of His kingdom. Innocencj'- of life, free- 
dom fi'om vice, good moral character, this is what 
many buUd their hopes upon, who would not 
lay claim to constancy of faith. Freedom from 
vice (even if we have come to it without a strug- 
gle, by sheer force of a plilegmatic natural tem- 
perament) is not a thing to be despised or cried 
down; it gives a man certain great advantages; 
but, in order to become "the sjoot of" God's true 
" children," — the innocency of the babes of His 
kingdom — it must be vitalized by a constant faith. 
So vitalized, and enduring unto the end amid the 
assaults of temptation, it will enable us to shine 
like lights in the world, and to glorify God by our 
good works and holy example. 



THE CIRCUMCISION OF CHRIST. 71 



Ei}e Circumcistou of CJjrist. 

■Almiglilj/ God, loho madesl iJn/ hlesaed Son to he circum- 
cised, and obedient to the law for man; Grant us the 
true Circumcision of the Spirit; that, our hearts, and 
all our members, being mortified from all loorkUy 
and carnal lusts, ice may in all thinr/s obey thy 
blessed wiV; through the same thy Son Jesus Christ 
our Lord. Ajuqw. 

Omnipotens Deus, cujus unigenitus hodierna die, ne le- 
gem solveret, quam odimplere venerai; corporalem 
suscepit circumcisionem ; spirituali circumcisione 
mentes vestras ab omnibus vitiorum inceniivis ex- 
purgel; et suam in vos infundet henedictionem,. 
Amen. (Geeg. Sac. Menard, p. 13. Given by 
Palmer in his "Origines Liturgicse.") 

WE can liarclly call this Collect a transla- 
tion. But the idea of it was probably 
borrowed from a benediction for the octave of 
Christmas Day, which is found in Gregory's Sac- 
ramentary, and which we have printed above. 
In dealing with this benediction, our Reformers 
(in 1549) inserted several explicit references to 
passages of Holy Scripture, certainly making the 
prayer much richer and fuller of meaning than 
it was before. 

" Almighty God, who madest thy blessed Son 
to be circumcised and obedient to the law." 
Circumcision was the entrance into the Cove- 
nant of the Law; and the person receiving it 
involved himself in every other legal obligation. 



72 THE CIRCUMCISION OF CHRIST. 

according to that word of St. Paul's, '' I testify 
... to every man that is circumcised, that he is 
a debtor to do the whole law." Christ, there- 
fore, who comjjlied with all the Law's demands 
for us, must needs be circumcised. The Circum- 
cision falls on the octave of Christmas (that is, on 
the eighth day after Christmas, countiug Christ- 
mas Day as one) for two reasons. First, because 
our Lord was actually circumcised exactly one 
week after He was born. In the institution of 
Circumcision it was said to Abraham, " He that 
is eight days old shall be circumcised among 
you." The Jews reckoned nothing perfect un- 
til seven days had passed over it from the day of 
its production, and the eighth had arrived; be- 
cause the creation of the world with the ensuing 
rest occupied seven days. We find that the Law 
was punctual!}^ complied with in our Lord's case : 
"When eight days were accomplished for the 
circumcising of the child, His name was called 
JESUS." But there is a deeper reason than 
this for the Feast of the Circumcision falling just 
one week after Christmas. The Nativity of Christ 
and His Circumcision are linked together by a 
text of Scrij)ture, and also in the order of 
thought, — "Grod sent forth His Son," we are 
told, "made of a woman"; — here is the Nativity 
of Christ; and then immediately the Apostle 
adds, "made under the law"; here is the Cir- 
cumcision, the act by which He first became in- 
volved in legal obligations. " Who is this that is 
born into the world so mj^steriously that none 



THE CIRCUMCISION OF CHRIST. 73 

can declare His generation ? " we might ask on 
Chi'istmas Day. And the first answer came on 
the Feast of the Circumcision: the great Law- 
fulfiller; the only child of man who CA'er did ful- 
fil God's law perfectly. And hence the Nativity 
and the Circumcision are coupled together in 
the pleadings of the Litany, as if they followed 
one another by a natural sequence : " By thy holy 
Nativity and Circumcision. . . . Good Lord, de- 
Hver us." 

"Grant us the true circumcision of the Spirit." 
Does the Sj)irit here mean the Holy Spirit ? As 
the Collect stood in Edward's First Book, it cer- 
tainly did; for there the words are, " Grant us 
the true circumcision of thy Spirit." In the Sec- 
ond Book, "thy "was altered to "the"; and so 
it has continued ever since. And, as our present 
Prayer Books are printed, the Holy Spirit is 
clearly meant, because the word "Spirit" is spelt 
with a capital S. But then the question arises 
whether there is any authority but that of the 
king's printers for spelling it with a capital. It 
is not so spelt in the Black Letter Prayer Book, 
which embodies the alterations made at the Savoy 
Conference, and of which the Sealed Books are 
copies. And in the old Latin benediction, which 
(as I have said) forms the basis of this Collect, the 
word is expressed by the adjective "spiritual": 
" Almighty God, whose only-begotten Son on this 
day received bodily cii'cumcision, purif}^ your minds 
by the spiritual circumcision from every allure- 
ment to vice." But let us go at once to the text 



74 THE CIRCUMCISION OF CHRIST. 

ou whicli tliis part of the prayer is founded, and 
ascertain tlae meaning of the word " spirit" there. 
"He is not a Jew, which is one outwardly; nei- 
ther is that circumcision, which is outward in the 
flesh: but he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and 
circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and 
not in the letter ; whose praise is not of men, but 
of God." Does " the spirit " here mean the Holy 
Spirit? Not exactly, I think. Bather it seems 
to mean the human spirit as moved and quick- 
ened by the Holy Spirit. " The letter " is the 
written enactment of the Law, prescribing bodily 
circumcision on the eighth day. And "the flesh " 
must be the outward part of our nature — in fact, 
the body. " The spirit," therefore, would seem to 
be the spiritual part of our nature, which is oper- 
ated upon internally by the Holy Spirit of God. 

Now what will be the effect of the true spirit- 
ual circumcision, if we undergo it ? how will it 
manifest itself? "That our hearts, and all our 
members, being mortified from all worldly and 
carnal lusts." "Hearts " probably is intended to 
go with " worldly," and " members " with " car- 
nal." The heart is to be mortified from all 
" worldly," as well as the body from all "carnal, 
lusts." A needful exhortation, surely! For 
worldliness, if freely indulged, will ruin the 
soul as utterly as immorality; and indeed it is 
a more subtle snare, since it does not alarm the 
conscience as much as sensual vices. 

"All our members, being mortified." The 
phraseology is evidently drawn from Col. iii. 5, 



\ 



THE CIRCUMCISION OF CHRIST. 75 

"Mortify therefore j'our members wliicli are 
upon the earth." The "members" mentioned 
in the Collect are without doubt, I think, the 
members of the body. But it is very doubtful 
whether the Apostle means exactty this by " mem- 
bers which are upon the earth." For he goes on 
to sjDecify, not members of the body, but certain 
lusts and desires, one at least of which has no 
connection with the body whatever. "Mortif}' 
therefore j^our members which are ui)on the 
earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affec- 
tion, evil concupiscence, and covetouRness, which is' 
idolatr}/." There is little doubt that St. Paul is 
S23eaking' figuratively, when he bids us " mortify 
our members which are upon the earth." And 
this is what makes me think that the "members" 
spoken of in the Collect are something different 
from the " members " alluded to by St. Paul; for 
the former are expressty said to be capable of 
obedience to the law of God, at least according 
to the original draft of the Collect. 

I must think that the alteration made by the 
king's printers, and stereotyped in our present 
Prayer Book, is, like many other alterations, no 
improvement. " That our hearts and all our 
members may obey;" so it ran once, and there 
was an edifying meaning in it. As "with the 
heart man believeth unto righteousness," so with 
the heart also he obeyeth unto sanctification. But 
then, remember that a really mortified heart will 
draw after it in the pathway of obedience really 
mortified "members." Mortified members are 



76 THE CIRCUMCISION OF CHRIST. 

members slain, or put to death; but slain as vic- 
tims, to be presented on God's altar. " I beseech 
you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, 
that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, 
acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable 
service." The hands, mortified from all dishon- 
est uses, are to obey God's will by honest labor, 
and by giving to him that needeth. The feet are 
to obey God's will by walking on His errands of 
love and mercy. The eyes, mortified from that 
love of external splendor which is called "the 
lust of the eyes," are to obey God's will by con- 
templating His works or reading His written 
Word. The ears, stopped against flattery and 
sinful enticement, are to obey by listening to all 
wise and godly instructions. The tongue, lastly, 
mortified from all corrupt communication and 
idle words, is to obey God's will by speaking and 
singing His praise. And these various "mem- 
bers " are all prompted and guided, in their obe- 
dience to God's will, by the heart. This is the 
living sacrifice to which the renewed mind is ex- 
horted, and the making of which is the evidence 
that we have received the " circumcision of the 
heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose 
praise is not of men, but of God." 



THE EPIPHANY. 77 



God, w7io hy tlie hadiiui of a star didst manifest tliy 
only-hegoilen Son to the Gentiles; Mercftdly gntnl, 
that we, icho know thee noio by faith, may after this 
life have the fruition of thy glorious Godhead; 
through Jesus Christ oiir Lord. Amen. 

Deus, qui hodierna die Unigenitum tuum gentlbus stella 
duce revelasti: concede pi^ojntius, ut qui jam te ex 
fide cognovimus, usque ad contemplandam speciem 
tuce celsit udinis perdncamur. Per eundem. (Geeg. 
Sac, Miss. Sab.) 

THE Collect before us, though in its present 
form a very noble prayer, has certainly 
lost point in the translation. For thus runs its 
petition in the Missal of Sarum, " Mercifully grant 
that we, which know thee now hy faith, may be led 
onwards until we come to gaze upon thy Majesty 
by sight." It maybe said that the having "the 
fruition of the glorious Godhead after this life " 
is one and the same thing with gazing upon His 
Majesty by sight. And so it is. But the clause 
in the original has several advantages over the 
translation. First, the mention of sight as well 
as faith recalls to the mind immediately the text 
upon which the entire j)i'^y6i' is built — "We 
walk by faith, not by, sight." Then the "we 
may be led onwards until" is an intended ap- 
plication, which no one can miss, of the story of 
the wise men to ourselves. When they were in 



78 ■ THE EPIPHANY. 

doubt as to their next step, " The star, which the}'' 
saw in the East, went before them, till it came 
and stood over where the young child was." So 
we pray that we may be led onward, by the star- 
light guidance of faith, until in a better and 
brighter life we come to gaze upon the Saviour 
face to face, to "see Him as He is." And the 
Latin scholar ^yill not omit to notice that the 
word which I haye rendered "gaze upon" is 
the yer}' word aj^projDriated to the study of the 
heavens. It is our word to contemplate; and the 
original meaning is, to study the firmament, as 
astroloo'ers or astronomers do. So that the 
thought of the wise men, then- occupation, their 
pilgrimage, and the blessed end of their pilgrim- 
age, is carried right through the original Collect, 
whereas from the final clause of our translation, 
"may after this life have the fruition of th}^ glo- 
rious Godhead" the thought is altogether ex- 
punged. 

" O God, who by the leading of a star didst 
manifest thy only-begotten Son to the Gentiles." 
The actual leading of the star, as distinct from 
the indication which its first appearance had 
given them of the birth of. the King of the Jews, 
seems to have been limited to the j)il8'i'iniage 
from Jerusalem to Bethlehem. They had been 
made aware, probabty by a special divine intima- 
tion, combined with the j)5:opli6cy of Balaam 
about " the Star " which should " come out of 
Jacob, and the Sceptre " which should " rise out 
of Israel," that the new meteor denoted the birth 



THE EPIPHANY. 79 

of the King of the Jews. To find a king, they 
must needs go to His cajDital; and the road to 
.Jerusalem was perfectly well known to them; so 
that, while pursuing it, they needed no guidance. 
"WTien they arrived, and in answer to their in- 
quiries were informed that the Child would be 
found at Bethlehem, as they probably did not 
know the way to that town, still less the way to 
Joseph's house, " the star went before them, till 
it came and stood over where the young child 
was." Their walking in pursuance of the star's 
indication in the first place, and afterwards their 
actually following the star, is a beautiful emblem 
— such is the teaching of this Collect — of our 
walking after Christ by faith. We shall never 
see Christ face to face as He is, unless we follow 
up the rudimentary knowledge of Him which is 
given us by faith; as it is said, "Then we shall 
know, if im follow on to know the Lord." Guid- 
ance by faith is guidance hj starlight; and the 
stars, however bright they are, while they may 
show pitfalls and precipices, yet never reveal the 
extent, much less the colors, of a landscape. 
Moreover, starlight is a bleak and ungenial guid- 
ance; while the stars shed light, they shed no 
warmth. And those who walk by faith, and 
whose faith is genuine, are yet not without their 
discomforts, their doubts, their j)6riods when 
feeling is at its lowest ebb. 

"Mercifully grant that we, w^ho know thee 
now by faith." Not by instruction, not by educa- 
tion, not by reading and study, but by faith. 



80 THE EPIPHANY. 

Education, instruction, study, reading, may en- 
able us to know about God; but knowing about 
Him and knowing Him, wliat different things 
they are ! God cannot possibly be known, ex- 
cej^t by the spiritual faculty, which is the faculty 
in our nature for knowing Him ; and if this faculty, 
the conscience, be not reached and touched by 
the revelations of the Gospel, there can be no 
real knowledge of God whatever, though our 
head be full of Catechisms and Creeds. And 
seeing that these revelations are of things un- 
seen, of things which the human conscience in- 
deed re-echoes, but to which our experience and 
senses bear no witness, they are revelations made 
to and grasped "by faith." 

" May be led onwards, until we come to gaze 
upon thy Majesty by sight.'' The loss of this 
" led onw^ards " in our translation is a great one. 
If we are hereafter to see Christ as He is, and to 
"have the fruition "in Him ''of" the "glorious 
Godhead," this blessed end will not be detached 
from, but stand in distinct and living relation to, 
our present course; there must be a gradual 
"leading onwards" through darkness, difficul- 
ties, and trials, until we reach it. Happy are 
we, if towards the end of our course the star 
again presents itself and moves on in front, and 
we feel more assured than ever that we have not 
trusted to cunningly devised fables, or delusions 
of the mind, when lirst, at the indications which 
it gave, we set forth on our Christian pilgrimage. 
And what will be the end of the course? "We 



THE EPIPHANY. 81 

shall see Him as He is." The Tvise men cannot 
be said to have gazed on Hia 3Iajedy by sight; 
they rather gazed on His lowliness than His 
loftiness; the}^ saw the young Child in a poor 
cottage, "all meanly wrapped in swaddling- 
bands." We, on the other hand, slioll " gaze 
upon His Majesty by sight,'' and, by seeing Him 
as He is, shall be " changed into the same im- 
age." Nor will it be merely an outward homage 
which we shall then pay to God in Christ. There 
will be a manifestation of God to the mind, heart, 
conscience, in all the beauty and blessedness of 
His character, a manifestation of which already 
many casual glimjDses have been granted to us, 
but which has never shone upon us in cloudless 
meridian splendor. And this manifestation will 
fill the soul with joy; it w^ill be the elevating, 
gladdening wine, which He will drink new with 
us in His Father's kingdom ; not a vision only, 
but a vision which fills the heart with rapture, 
and leads us to say w4th St. Peter, " Lord, it is 
good for us to be here." In short, it will be 
"the fruition of the glorious Godhead." 



82 FIRST SUNDAY AFTER THE EPIPHANY. 



Jir^t $untra2 after tlje llptpJian^* 

Lord, toe heseecli thee mercifully to receive ilie prayers 
of thy people who call upon thee; and grant that tliey 
may both perceive and know ichat things they ought 
to do, and also may have grace and power faithfully 
to fulfil the same; through Jesus Christ our Lord. 
Amen. 

Vota qucesumus, Domine, supplicantis popull coelesii pi- 
etate prosequere; ut et quce agenda sunt videant, et 
ad implenda quce viderunt convalescant. Per Dom- 
inum. (Geeg. Sac, Miss. Sah.) 

THE literal rendering of tlie Collect before 
US, in the Sacramentary of Gregory, is, 
"O Lord, we beseech thee, regard with the com- 
passion of a heavenly Father the fervent desires 
of thy people, who make their supplications nnto 
thee, that the}^ may both see what things ought 
to be done, and may have strength to fulfil 
what they see. Through the Lord." 

The Latin has the word "vota" ("vows" or 
" desires ") where our translation, somewhat 
more tamety, has "prayers." "Yows" or " de- 
sires " are words expressive of more fervor and 
spirituahty than the word "prayers." Hence a 
vow means a pra^^er in its intensified form — a 
prayer which is the expression of some wish on 
which our whole heart and soul is bent. "Fer- 
vent desire " is perhaps the nearest approach we 
can make to the meaning in English. Are the 
prayers we offer in Church and elsewhere the ex- 



FIRST SUNDAY AFTER THE EPIPHANY. 83 

pression of fervent desire ? Our own hearts best 
know. 

Obsen'e what God (both in the original and in 
the translation) is implored to do with these 
prayers, the utterances of fei^vent desire. Not 
absolutely to grant them. God "gave "the Is- 
raelites " their desire," when He showered the 
quails tw^o cubits deep about theii* camp; but 
He "sent leanness withal into theu* souls." 
Therefore, however fervent may be our desires, 
and however fuU and free our libertv of makino' 
them known at God's throne of God's grace, "we 
may not ask without reserve for the fulfilment 
of them. But does it foUow that, because God 
does not grant a request, and could not do so 
consistently with the petitioner's w^elfare, He 
therefore objects to its being laid before Him? 
On the contrary, the precept is, "Ye people, pour 
out your heart before Him;" "Be careful for 
nothing; but in ever^^thing b}^ pra3'er and sup- 
plication with thanksgiving let your requests be 
made known unto God.'' God looks with favor 
on thousands of petitions which He cannot grant. 
He "mercifully receives" a prayer, even when 
He does not assent to it. 

But the word " Mercifully " is also, I think, a 
little tame in comparison with the original. The 
exact rendering is, "Follow up with divine fa- 
therly comjDassion," or, as I have ventured to 
express it, "with the compassion of a heavenly 
Father." There is something inexpressibly sooth- 
ing in the thought that God yearng over us with 



84 FIRST SUNDA V AFTER THE EPIPHANY. 

fatherly compassion, wlienever, prostrate at the 
throne of grace, we lay bare before Him the de- 
sires of our hearts. The vows shall be most 
graciously received, even when they cannot be 
granted. "When the heart is assured of this, 
"the peace which passeth all understanding" 
flows into it. 

The more literal rendering of the words " who 
call upon thee" is "who supplicate thee." 
"Whether, according to its derivation, the word 
" supplicate " indicates that the knees of the pe- 
titioner are bent under him, or, as seems more 
probable, that the open ^^alms of the hands are 
extended towards the person from whom relief is 
sought, the idea conveyed by the word is the 
same — not prayer only, but prayer offered with 
an imploring earnestness. The Litany of the 
Church of England, the accents of which surely 
indicate special fervor, is called in its title "the 
Litany, or General Supplication." And the most 
intense prayer which man ever offered, our blessed 
Lord's prayer in the garden, has the name of " sup- 
plication " given to it in our authorized transla- 
tion of the Epistle to the Hebrews, as also in the 
Latin Yulgate, " When He had offered up prayers 
and supplications, with strong crying and tears, 
unto Him that was able to save Him from death." 
If the prayers of the sinless One were so intensely 
earnest, what have ours, think you, need to be ? 

"And grant." These words are an insertion 
of the translators, and probably a necessary one. 
In translating very terse Latin into English, some 



I 



FIRST SUNDA Y AFTER THE EPIPHANY. 85 

amount of enlargement and exj^ansion is neces- 
sary to make it generally understood. But here 
the effect of the insertion is to unhook the latter 
part of the prayer from the foregoing, and to 
break up into two separate i^etitions what before 
was only one. But when there was only one pe- 
tition, how did the parts of it hang together? 
Where God does not see fit to fulfil the prayers 
of His people. His favorable reception of them 
will show itself in enlightening them as to their 
duty and strengthening them to perform it. 
Where He cannot give the thing asked for, He 
will answer by light and strength. 

"May both j^erceiye and know." The words 
" and know" are added by the translators. The 
Latin has only "may see." The addition of the 
verb to know is not suj^erfluous. It conveys a 
slightly different notion from "perceive." We 
perceice how we ought to act by the whispers of 
God's Spirit in the conscience; we arrive at the 
knowledge of how w^e ought to act by the study of 
God's Word. The Word of God, of course, as 
well as the Spirit of God, plays a most important 
part in our moral guidance; but I apprehend 
that in the prayer before us spiritual intuition is 
the thing principally meant, that intuition, which 
the heavenly Father pledges Himself to give, when 
He says to the penitent sinner, " I will guide thee 
icith mine eye. Be ye not as the horse, or as the 
mule, which have no understanding; whose mouth 
must be held in with bit and bridle." Let us 
then, in every perplexity about God's will, pray 



86 SECOND SUNDA Y AFTER THE EPIPHANY. 

witli JoD, " That wliich. I see not teach thou 
me." 

" And also may have grace and power faith- 
fully to fulfil the same." The " grace " and the 
" faithfully " are expansions made by the transla- 
tor. " May have strength " (or become strong) 
" to fulfil what they see." This is the exact force 
of the original. To fulfil God's will is to execute 
it faithfully. How essential this clause is to the 
completeness of the prayer, we can understand 
only by considering the positively baneful effects 
of knowledge without practice. " To him that 
Inioweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it 
is sin. 



$econtr $untJag after tl)e !EpijiJ}ang* 

Almighty and everlasting God, who dosi govern all 
things in heaven and earth; Mercifulhj hear the sup- 
plications of thy people, and grant us thy peace all 
the days of our life; through Jesus Christ our Lord. 
Amen. 

Oninipotens sempiterne Deus, qui coelestia simid el ier- 
rena moderaris; suppUcrdiones popidi 'tui clementer 
e.xaudi, et pacem tuam nostris concede teniporihus. 
Per Dorninum. (Gbeg. Sac, Miss. Sab.) 

IN translating this Collect, our Reformers have 
given a turn to the close of it, which must 
be admitted, I think, to be an improvement. 
The literal translation of the original, which is 
found in Gregory's Sacramentary, is as follows: 
" Almighty and everlasting God, who dost control 



SECOND SbWDA Y AFTER THE EPIPHANY. 87 

at ouce heavenly and eartlil}^ things, graciously 
regard the supplications of thy peoj)le, and grant 
thy peace to our times." 

"Almighty and everlasting God. " "Almighty " : 
here is God's power; "everlasting": here is His 
perpetual existence in the future. Nothing could 
be more exact as a translation than the word 
"everlasting." The original is an adjective de- 
rived from the adverb "always"; "alwa^'s exist- 
ing," in contrast with the transient and change- 
ful existence of the creatures. 

" Who dost govern all things." The Latin 
word is not that, which we have before met with 
in the Collects, and which, in its original accej)- 
tation, signifies the prudent guidance of a helms- 
man. The orimnal meaning* of tain word is to 

o o 

set bounds to, and hence to restrain. Thus it is 
used of the government of the tongue, and of 
the government of horses. The word afterwards 
comes to have the more general meaning of ad- 
ministration and sway ; but never altogether drops, 
I think, the notion of something which offers re- 
sistance to the administration, and rebels against 
the sway. It is perfectly easy to see how, in the 
management of " earthly things," God finds such 
resistance to His swa}". He has gifted man with 
freewill; and in the exercise of this freewill man 
has rebelled against Him, as the Epistle to the 
Hebrews says, "we see not yet all things put 
under Him," that is, under Jesus, who, we may 
usefully remind ourselves, is now governing the 
universe, in His mediatorial character as God's 



88 SECOND SUNDAY AFTER THE EPIPHANY. 

Viceroy. But " things in heaven," too, are said 
to be equally and at the same time restrained 
and controlled by God. How can this be ? What 
resistance can be offered to God's sway in heaven ? 
What unruly will can rise up against Him there ? 
The answer must be sought in such passages as, 
"There was war in heaven;" "Michael and his 
angels fought against the dragon;" "We wrestle 
not against flesh and blood, but against princi- 
palities, against powers, against the rulers of the 
darkness of this world, against spiritual wicked- 
ness in high places " (mai'gin, " against wicked 
spirits in heavenly places "). All it is given us to 
know is, that in some lofty region, far beyond 
the reach of our senses (though not, of course, in 
that immediate Presence-Chamber of God, which 
is usually understood by the word "heaven") a 
struggle for master}^ between the powers of good 
and of evil is still going on, in which we men — im- 
mortal spirits, but dwelling in tabernacles of flesh 
and blood — are deeply interested; that God re- 
strains the spirits arrayed against us, and never 
suffers us to be tempted above that we are able ; 
and that, besides fortifying us for this warfare by 
His Holy Spirit, He employs the holy angels for 
our succor and defence. It is to their bright 
squadrons that Nebuchadnezzar refers, when he 
ascribes glory to God in this magnificent strain — • 
" And he doeth according to His will in the arnuj 
of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth ; 
and none can stay His hand, or say unto Him, 
What doest thou?" 



I 



SECOND SUNDA Y AFTER THE EPIPHANY. 89 

" Merciiull}' hear the supphcatioiis of thy ^qo- 
ple." " Mercifully." The word is " Clementer "; 
*' of thy clemency " — with favor, and acceptance, 
as Ahasuerus accepted Esther, when he held out 
to her the golden sceptre. We shall all be gra- 
ciously and favorably accej^ted, like Esther, if we 
approach God as she ajDproached Ahasuerus, in the 
royal apparel of the righteousness of Christ. 

The word rendered " hear " means something* 
more than mere hearing. It rather denotes lis- 
tening, giving heed, paying attention to w^hat is 
heard. '■'Regard the supplications of thy people." 

"And grant us thy peace all the days of our 
life." The petition, as it stood originally, was 
precisely'' the same as that which we use in our 
daily- Service, and which is designed as a brief 
summary of the second Collects for Morning and 
Evening Prayer, both of which sue for peace. 
'^ Priest. Give peace in our time, O Lord. An- 
swer. Because there is none other that fighteth 
for us, but only thou, O God." This petition is 
founded on a promise made to one King of Ju- 
dah, and framed upon a sentiment expressed by 
another. It was promised by the word of the 
Lord to David respecting Solomon: " I vnll give 
peace and quietness unto Israel in his days." 
And when Hezekiah was threatened by Isaiah 
with the spoiling of his treasures, and the cap- 
tivity and degradation of his sons, he exj)ressed 
himself thus: "Good is the word of the Lord 
wliich thou hast spoken. And he said, Is it not 
good, if peace and truth be in my days ? " We 



90 SECOND SUNDAY AFTER THE' EPIPHANY. 

may most legitimately pray (as we do elsewhere) 
that God would grant peace to our times, so 
that His " Church may joyfully serve " Him " in 
all godly quietness." But our wise Beformers 
have certainly pitched this clause in a higher 
key of spirituahty, by so altering it as to make it 
a request for peace to ourselves rather than 
to our times — a prayer that God would indil 
peace into our hearts, rather than dhtil it upon 
our circumstances and surroundings, peace in 
the heart through the blood of the cross, and 
the overshadowing of the wings of the Spirit. 
That God 'hears, and in His own good time 
and manner will answer all our prayers for His 
sake, this peace may subsist and be enjoyed amid 
the most troublous and unquiet outward circum- 
stances, just as a few feet beneath its agitated 
surface, the sea is as calm and profoundly silent 
as the slumber of an infant. 



THIRD SUNDA V AFTER THE EPIPHANY. 91 



2Ci}trti Suixtiag after tl}e Epipljang* 

AlmiigTity and everlasting God, mercifully look iqyon 
our infirmities, and in all our da))gers and oieces- 
silies stretch forth thy right hand to help and defend 
us; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. 

Omnipotens sempiterne Deus, infirmitateni nostrani pro- 
pitius respice; atque ad protegenduni nos dexterani 
iucB majestatis extende. Per Dominiiin. (Gkeg. 
Sac, Miss. Sak.) 

THE CoUects in the old Latin Office Books 
were sometimes too brief for the people 
too join in intelligently; they required just a 
touch of expansion before the meaning of them 
could be made to lay hold of the mind of an En- 
glish congregation. Such touches of expansion 
our Reformers have usually given them with 
great judgment. We have an instance in the 
present Collect. The clause "in all our dangers 
and necessities" was added b}^ the translators; 
and, in order to make what follows correspond 
more closely with the twofold expression " dan- 
gers and necessities," they have inserted the verb 
" help," ^vhere the original had nothing but " pro- 
tect." Thus ran the Prayer, before these altera- 
tions in it were made: "Almighty and everlast- 
ing God, mercifully look upon our weakness, and 
stretch forth the right hand of thy Majesty to 
protect us. Through the Lord." 

"Almighty and everlasting God," the strong 
and changeless One Avith whom we have to do, 



92 THIRD SUNDA Y AFTER THE EPIPHANY. 

"mercifully look upon our weakness;" for so it 
is in the original, the word " infirmity " having 
been changed into the plural by the translators. 
Possibly, in making this seemingly slight altera- 
tion, they may have sought to establish a rather 
closer link of connection between the Collect and 
the Gospel of the day. We are now in the 
Epiphany season, when we commemorate the va- 
rious manifestations of Christ. The Gospel of 
the Third Sunday records the manifestation of 
Him by miraculous power over disease, how, by 
a touch in the case of leprosy, and a word in 
the case of palsy, He recovered patients from 
those maladies. Now, in the very chapter from 
which the Gospel is taken (St. Matt, viii.), these 
and similar maladies are expressly called "in- 
firmities" in a passage which is cited by the 
Evangelist from the prophet Isaiah: "He cast 
out the spirits with His word, and healed all that 
were sick: that it might be fulfilled which was 
spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying, Himself 
took our infirmities, and bear our sicknesses." 

And this observation may help to explain to us 
the class of " infirmities " which is meant, when 
Almighty God is besought " mercifully " to "look 
upon our infirmities." The infirmities which 
Christ took were not moral or spiritual infirm- 
ities, but simply the results of these. He bore 
all the consequences of sin ; but took neither our 
sin nor our sins. Not only did He never do a 
sinful act, but He had not a sinful nature. But 
all those weaknesses of the flesh, which, though 



THIRD SUN DA Y AFTER THE EPI-PHANY. 93 

not themselves sinful, came in the train of the 
fall, all these He did take, and underwent as 
our Rei3resentative. As things are best under- 
stood by an example, I will mention the infirm- 
ities of human nature in reference to prayer. 
Does not each one of us know something of them 
by experience ? Have we never found that the 
mind flies off at a tangent to earthly things, when 
Ave desire to fix it; that it easily tires of prayer; 
that it is cold, torpid, dead, especially when the 
bodily temperament is a little languid, and the 
animal spirits low ? If we may not j^resume to 
say that our Blessed Lord experienced exactly 
these difficulties in prayer, yet that He did ex- 
perience difficulties in connection wdth it of a far 
more crushing kind, and that these difficulties 
came from the weakness of the flesh, which He 
took for our sakes, is absolutely certain. Did 
He not agonize in praj^er in the garden, lest He 
should }4eld a single inch to the temptation 
which bade Him decline the cup of suffering; 
and did He not carry away, for His disciples, 
that lesson of lessons, which should be their 
pole-star of guidance in all their trials: "Watch 
and pray, that ye enter not into temptation: the 
spirit indeed is willing, but thefle^h is tceak " ? 

Then, having at the right hand of God (ob- 
serve the subtle, but very real, thread of connec- 
tion between the former and the latter part of 
the Collect), having at that "right hand,"' which 
we pray God to stretch forth in our behalf, a 
great High Priest who, having been in all points 



94 THIRD SUNDAY AFTER THE EPIPHANY. 

tempted like as we are, can be touched with a 
feehng of our infirmities, we beseech the Al- 
mighty and Everlasting One to "look upon" or 
regard them " mercifuU}^" 

But the heavenly Father will not content Him- 
self with a merciful casting of His eyes upon His 
suppliants. He will arise, and help them, and 
dehver them for His mercy's sake. This is im- 
plied in the word translated "and," which is not 
the simple copulative, but an intensified form of 
it. Atque cannot be translated by a single En- 
glish word; its force is, " Mercifully look and" — 
not look only, but — " actively assist also." The 
benevolence of God, very unlike that of man, 
does not stop short in kindly emotions. 

"In all our dangers and necessities." The 
weakness of man's condition shows itself in two 
forms, he is exposed to perils, and liable to con- 
stantly recurring wants — bodily perils, spiritual 
perils, bodily wants, spii'itual wants. This two- 
fold form in which man's infirmity shows itself is 
assuredly no vain rej)etition; it is a real opening 
out of the thought of the Collect, which shows 
us how true and delicate a perception our Re- 
formers had of the originals which they were 
dealing with. 

" Stretch forth thy right hand." In the orig- 
inal it is the " right hand of thy Majesty," as the 
same words are actually translated in the Collect 
for the Third Sunday in Lent. Perhaps it would 
have been better to leave them so here, not only 
because more literal and exact, but because "right 



THIRD SUNDA l AFTER THE EPIPHANY. 95 

baud of thy Majesty " awakens, somewhat more 
vividly than " thy right hand," associations with 
certain parts of Scripture which open out and 
illustrate the subject. We are told in the Epistle 
to the Hebrews that Christ, having " by Himself 
purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of 
the Majedy on high." "The Man of God's right 
hand," once " crucified through weakness," now 
" liveth by the power of God for us and towards 
us," as He Himself says: "I am He that liveth, 
and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for ever- 
more. Amen." 

At the time of His Second Advent He will 
come again in His own Person, to helj) His 
Church with an everlasting succor, and to give 
her perfect security against all dangers. So to 
His disciples of old, when their ship was buffeted 
with adverse winds, and they were toiling in 
rowing, He came down from the mount on which 
He had been praying for them, walking on the 
waves on which they were tossing. Not until 
that period, when "the Man of God's right 
hand" revisits our planet, will the prayer that 
He would stretch forth His right hand to help 
and defend us, receive its full and final answer. 
For the present the Holy Ghost acts as the agent 
and representative of Christ upon earth. Our 
Lord lives His own life in us by the power of the 
Holy Ghost. And that involves the correction 
of the evil tendencies of oui' nature by grace, 
our protection from moral contagion by jjr evi- 
dence, and the counterplotting of our spiritual 



96 FOURTH SUNDA V AFTER THE EPIPHANY. 

foes by the ministry of lioly angels. It involves 
also the supply of our necessities, the means of 
grace and the making them available, the cloth- 
ing of us with Christ's righteousness, the appli- 
cation to us of Christ's blood. 



jFourtf) Suntiag after tl}e i;ptpljang> 

God, loho Jcnowesi tis to be sel in the midst of so 'many 
and great dangers, that by reason of the frailty of our 
nature ice cannot always stand upright; Grant to us 
such strength and protection, as may support us in 
all dangers, and carry us through all temptations; 
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Ameu. 

Deus, qui nos in tantis periculis constitutos pro humana 
scis frag il Hate non posse subsistere; da nobis sahdem 
mentis et corpo7'is, id ea quce pro peccalis nostris 
paiimur, te adjuvante vincamus. Per Doniinum. 
(Gbeg. Sac, Miss. Sab.) 

IN this Collect we come across a condition of 
things which we have not hitherto met with. 
The first half of the prayer is drawn from an- 
cient sources. The latter half, which is the pe- 
tition proper, was made new at the last Review 
of the Prayer Book in 1661. It was not the Re- 
formers who made it new. Their Collect was 
throughout a translation of that which appears 
in the Sacramentary of Gregor^^ The petition, 
as translated by Cranmer, ran thus: "Grant to 
us the health of body and soul, that all those 
things which we suffer for sin, by thy help we 
may well pass and overcome : through Christ our 



."CURTH SUNDAY AFTER THE EPIPHANY. 07 

Ijord." I think it must be admitted that, as a 
prayer for general use, they have much improved 
tlie Collect, while, at the same time, they have 
not destroyed or lost sight of the connection 
which it had with the Gosj^el of the da}-. The 
Gospel consisted formerly of what now fonns 
only the first part of it, St. Matthew's account of 
our Lord's stilhng the tempest. Every part of the 
old Collect had a close reference to this incident. 
The Reformers added on to the stilling of the tem- 
pest the account of the miracle wrought upon the 
Gergesene demoniacs. And most appropriately. 
For, first, the miracles actually followed one ujDon 
another, and are related as consecutive by all 
three Evangelists. Then, secondly, the sequence 
of thought from the stilling of the outward tem- 
j)est to that in the frenzied mind of man is easy, 
natural, and beautiful. And again, if the Saviour 
was to be fully exhibited by the Epiphany Gos- 
pels in His manifestations of miraculous power, 
this could not be without including one instance 
of His casting out devils. But, of course, the 
adding a second miracle to the Gospel had a 
tendency to divide the attention of the reader 
between two different subjects; and, this being 
the case, the Revisers may well have thought it 
desirable somewhat to generalize the petition of 
the Collect, and to make it as Avidely applicable 
to human cu'cumstances as possible. 

" O God, who knowest us to be set in the 
midst of so many and great dangers, that by 
reason of the frailtv of our nature we cannot 



98 FOURTH SUNDAY AFTER THE EPIPHANY. 

alv/ays stand upright." This is a most touching 
appeal to our heavenly Father. The Collect is 
set in quite the same key as the last, in which we 
beseech God to "look mercifully upon our in- 
firmities, and in all our dangers and necessities " 
to " stretch forth His right hand to help and de- 
fend us." On the words, "O God, who knoioed us 
to be set," we may make the reflection that, while 
God knows and sees the perils in which we are, 
we do not always know and see them ourselYes, 
and that those perils are most perilous of which 
we are least conscious. Bodily dangers, indeed, 
like that arising from the storm at sea, force 
themselves, for the most j)art, on our conscious- 
ness. But we are often nearest to spiritual perils 
when we are least on our guard against them. 
In all strong excitements of mind, it is exceed- 
ingly difficult, "by reason of the frailty of our 
nature," to " stand upright." And the best plan 
we can adopt is to do nothing and say nothing 
under the impulse, beyond crying to our Lord 
to still the tempest. Bishop Fisher recommended 
Princess Charlotte, in all fits of uncontrollable 
temper, never to open her lips until she had first 
repeated the Lord's Prayer mentally with as 
much seriousness and devotion as she could 
command. 

"Grant to us such strength and protection, 
as may support us in all dangers, and carry us 
through all temptations." This clause is cer- 
tainly a most skilful generalization of the peti- 
tion of the old Latin Collect. There the prayer 



FOURTH SUNDA V AFTER THE EPIPHANY. 99 

was for health of mind and bod}^ Here we ask 
for such drength as may carry us through all tempta- 
tions, — that strength of Christ which is made per- 
fect in our weakness, and which alone can j)i'e- 
serve us in faith and jDurit}' — that is, in a condition 
of mental health — and for such protection as may 
support us, and prevent our faith from failing in 
all dangers. Botli these things are almost equally 
necessary' to us, that God should shield us inter- 
nally and externall}^, fortifying our hearts by 
His grace, while at the same time He protects us 
from circumstances in which our faith would be 
too severely tried. We must bear in mind, how- 
ever, that, while we ask for such protection, we 
must be very careful not to expose ourselves to 
the perils from which we ask to be protected. 
Dangers many and great we cannot indeed es- 
cape, but we may not "set" ourselves " in" them. 
We are insincere with God when we say to Him, 
"Lead us not into temptation," if we run into it 
ireelj, and will not avoid such company, such 
books, such amusements, such surroundings as 
our experience tells us are sure to bring it. Fi- 
nally, do not fail to notice the force of the "such" 
in the words "such strength and protection." 
We ask for daily bread — that is, for adequate suj)- 
port, strength which meets our needs, no less 
and no more. Less would not serve the pur- 
pose; more we have no warrant for asking. Suf- 
fice it if the promise be fulfilled to us, " As thy 
days, so shall thy strength be." 



100 FIFTH SUNDA V AFTER THE EPIPHANY. 



jFiftf) Stintrag after t{)e lEptpJjang. 

Lord, tee beseech thee to keejj tliy Church and house- 
hold continually in thy true religion; that tliey voho 
do lean only upon tlw hope of thy heavenly grace may 
evermore be defended by thy mighty pomer; through 
Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. 

Fainiliam tuam, qucesumus, Domine, continua pietate 
custodi; id quae in sola spe gratice coelestis innititury 
tua ifemper protectione muniatur. ' Per. (Greg. 
Sac, Miss. Sah.) 

THE first part of this Collect, whioh contains 
. its direct petition, is in the original Latin 
the same, word for word, as we find in the Col- 
lect for the Twenty-second Sunday after Trinity. 
The translators^ however, have not given the 
same rendering in this as in that. I know not 
whether Cranmer and his colleagues, in their 
versions of these old devotional forms, were in- 
fluenced by the same preference of a variety in 
the English words, even where the original ex- 
hibits no variety, which certainly seems to have 
guided the translators of the Bible at a later 
date. In the Collect for the Twenty-second Sun- 
day after Trinity the petition runs: "Lord, we 
beseech thee to keep thy household the Church 
in continual godliness; " while here we have, " O 
Lord, we beseech thee to keep thy Church 
and household continually in thy true religion." 
" In thy true religion," as well as " in continual 
godliness," is, as I endeavor to show in my com- 



FIFTH SUNDA V AFTER THE ETITHANY. 101 

mentary on the later Collect, a mistranslation, 
and one wliicli obliterates an idea which it is 
most important to j^reserve. The Latin is, in 
both cases, "continua pietate custodi," and the 
true rendering of this is, "Keep, we beseech 
thee, Lord, thy household" (there is no 
"Church" in the original; people who use the 
Collect are supposed to understand that God's 
household U the Church) " continually with thy 
fatherly goodness." Pietas does not here mean, 
as it often does elsewhere, the sentiment of God's 
people towards Him (had this been meant, the 
preposition "in" would have made its appear- 
ance in the original) ; but His sentiment towards 
them, — that fatherly compassion, love, longing, 
and 3'earning w^hich moved Him to send His Son 
into the world to save the world, and which leads 
Him to watch over His Church more especially 
■ (that is, over the sanctified portion of mankind) 
with the tenderest solicitude, even fts He watched 
over Israel in his pilgrimage through the w^il- 
derness. 

In order to work out fully the idea presented 
in the Collect, we must observe that the mem- 
bers of God's household are children, and, as 
children, they implore Him to "keep them," 
or watch over them, "with fatherly goodness." 
Children; — yes, all children, but not all dutiful 
children. The Gospel of the day shows us tares 
growing side b}" side w^ith wheat in the Church's 
harvest-field. God has His prodigal sons, w^io 
have quitted the household, and are living in a 



102 FIFTH SUN DA V AFTER THE EPIPHANY. 

far country, away from liome and its peace and 
plenty. Yet even over these, in their voluntary 
exile, do His bowels of compassion yearn; His 
fatherly goodness has not forsaken them, but is 
instigating them by an instinct of deep dissatis- 
faction, to return home. And when He catches 
a sight of them struggling back homeward, even 
when they are yet a great way off. He will run, 
and fall on their neck and kiss them, giving them 
the welcome of " fatherly goodness," and watch- 
ing over them now under the shadow of His 
roof. Thus He keeps His Church with "■perpet- 
ual iiiercy,'' according to the CoUect for the Fif- 
teenth Sunday after Trinity, as well as " with fa- 
therly goodness," according to the Latin original 
of the Collect before us. 

" That they who do lean only upon the hope 
of thy heavenly grace may evermore be defended 
by thy mighty power." In the original this clause 
is in the singttlar, which makes it hang together 
more closely with the petition: "Lord, we be- 
seech thee to keep thy household continually 
with thy father^ goodness, that she " (thy 
household) " who doth lean only upon the hoj^e 
of thy heavenly grace may evermore be walled 
round by thy protection" — the feminine desig- 
nation of the Church reminding one of that pas- 
sage in the Canticles, "AYho is this that cometh 
up from the wilderness, leaning upon her be- 
loved?" 

" They who do lean only upon the ho]3e of thy 
heavenly grace." It is a very plaintive and pite- 



FIFTH SUNDAY AFTER THE EPIPHANY. 103 

ous appeal, and one wliicli God is perfectly sure 
to respond to, if it is made in sincerity. But do 
not imagine that the making it in sincerity is a 
very easy matter. To lean only upon the hope 
of God's heavenl}' grace, seeing it is the very 
foundation of all true religion, is what we can- 
not do by our natural power, — what I suppose 
no one ever does, without being first beaten com- 
j^letely out of trust in himself and his own re- 
sources. Every one who desponds in the spirit- 
ual combat, who allows himself to be very much 
disheartened by bad falls, shows by his discour- 
ao'ement that there still lurks in him the vice of 
self-trust, and that he is not leaning only ujDon 
the hope of heavenly grace. If he regarded his 
own strength and all manifestations of it, his 
resolutions, his enthusiasms, his vows of stead- 
fast allegiance (" Although all shall be offended, 
yet will not I "), as being mere and utter weak- 
ness, there would be no cause for surprise or de- 
spondency or passionate vexation, when he broke 
down. This passionate vexation means too often 
that people are disapj)ointed in themselves, and 
their vanity is wounded. 

" They who do lean only upon the hope of thy 
heavenly grace." It must be a well-grounded 
hope; otherwise it will be like a broken reed 
when it is leant upon. And upon what then is 
it grounded ? Upon God's omnipotence, which 
must be more than a match for the corruption of 
our nature and our spiritual foes. Upon God's 
wisdom, which knows perfectly our character, our 



104 SIXTH SUNDA V AFTER THE EPIPHANY, 

past history, our present circumstances. Upon 
God's love, which can overcome all obstacles in 
the way of our salvation, since it moved Him to 
give His own Son for a world lying in wicked- 
ness and defying Him. And, finally, upon the 
sympathy of the good Shepherd, who cannot 230s- 
sibly desert the sheep for which He laid down 
His hfe, when He hears it cr^dng to Him out of 
the midst of spiritual discomfiture and distress. 



<$ixtl) $untiag after tl}e (JFptpliaitg* 

God^ icJiose blessed Son icas manifested that He might 
' destroy the icorJcs of the devil, and make us the sons 
of God, and heirs of eternal life; Grant us, we be- 
seech thee, that, having this hope, we may jncrify our- 
selves, even as He is pure; that, ivhen He shall ap- 
pear again with power and great glory, toe may be 
made like unto Him in His eternal and glorious king- 
dom; where with thee, Father, and thee, Holy 
Ghost, He liveth and reigneth, ever one God, world 
without end. Amen. (a. d. 1661.) 

IN the Missal of Sarum no special provision 
was made for a Sixth Sunday after the 
Epiphany. The arrangement was this. On the 
Sunday which fell within the Octave of the Epiph- 
any, and which we now call the First Sunday 
after the Epiphanj^, the Collect of the Festival 
was repeated. The Sundays following, of which 
there were five, were reckoned, not from the 
Epiphany itself, but from the Octave : first Sun- 
day after the Octave of the Epiphany, etc., etc. 



1 



SIXTH SUNDA V AFTER THE EPIPHANY. 105 

At the Reformation this arrangement was altered 
to the simpler and more natural one of making 
the Sundays date from the Festival itself; but, in 
case of there being in any year six Sundays after 
the Epiphany, the last had no special j^ro vision 
made for it; but a rubric appeared, ordering that 
"the sixth Sunda}^ " (if there be so many) shall have 
the same "Psalm" (lutroit), " Collect, Epistle, and 
G-ospel that was upon the fifth." So things con- 
tinued down to the time of the final Revision in 
1661 — a period of a hundred and twelve years — 
and then Bishop Cosin drew up our present Col- 
lect, Epistle, and Gospel for the Sixth Sunday, 
not only adding thereby to the body of the old 
Collects a prayer of great beauty, and every way 
worthy of its position, but showing a keen appre- 
ciation of the ratwaale of Church seasons, which 
we cannot too much admii'e. 

For, with this finishing stroke put to the series, 
wonderful is the significance of the Epiphany 
Gospels. The Gospel for the Festival itself re- 
hearses the manifestation of Christ in infancy to 
the wise men. Tlie Gospel for the First Sunday 
recounts His manifestation in childhood to the 
doctors in the temple. Then follow the records 
of His miraculous manifestations, the earliest of 
all that at Cana of Galilee, of which miracle it is 
distinctly said that thereby Jesus "manifested 
forth His glory." The miraculous cures of the 
Jewish le2:>er and of the Gentile centurion's ser- 
vant follow in the Gospel for the Third Sunda}^ 
The miraculous calming of the stormy sea, and 



106 SIXTH SUNDA V AFTER THE EPIPHANY. 

of the still more stormy demoniacs, forms the 
subject of the Gospel for the Fourth Sunday. 
The manifestation of Christ in the Church, where 
there is ever a mixture of good and evil — tares 
and wheat in the same harvest-field — is brought 
before us in the fifth Grospel. There was wanted 
surely, to close the series, a description of the 
final manifestation of Christ "in the clouds of 
heaven, with power and great glory." And this 
has been given us by Bishop Cosin's master-hand 
in the Gospel for the Sixth Sunday, and is re- 
ferred to with great solemnity and magnificence 
in the associated Collect, which is probably the 
finest devotional piece we have of the era of the 
Restoration. 

"O God, whose blessed Son was manifested 
that He might destroy the works of the devil;" 
an inweaving into the Collect of the text in St. 
John's First Epistle : " For this purpose the Son 
of God was manifested that He might destroy" 
(literally "loose," apply a solvent to) "the works 
of the devil." Christ always appears in the Gos- 
pels as the personal antagonist of Satan, strug- 
gling with him throughout, and eventually tri- 
umphing over him gloriously. He is continually 
casting out devils, and rescuing from their thral- 
dom the souls and bodies of men. When His 
end approached. He recognized Satan as girding 
himself up for his final and most formidable as- 
sault; and when about to leave His disciples, the 
legacy which He bequeathed to them was this: 
" In my name they shall cast out devils." 



SIXTH SUNDA Y AFTER THE EPIPHANY. 107 

But it might, perhaps, be thought that, as 
demoniacal possession is commonly supposed to 
exist no longer, men generally have but little 
concern with this triumph of Christ over the 
powers of darkness. Any such conclusion is en- 
tirely precluded by another statement of the 
Epistle to the effect that " Christ was manifested 
to take away our sins." But who is the author 
of sin ? who first introduced it into human life ? 
"That old ser23ent, which is the devil." Sin, 
and sin only, constitutes the devil's hold upon 
every man. And this hold it is which Christ was 
manifested to loosen by His blood and grace. 
Fii'st, by His blood, whereby " a fuU, perfect, and 
sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction " was 
made for sin. The death of Christ, instigated by 
the devil, was the great means of defeating the 
devil, inasmuch as it was a propitiation for the 
sins of the whole world, and so it is wiitten that 
"through death He destroyed him that had the 
power of death, that is, the devil," and that, 
" having spoiled principalities and j^owers, He 
made a show of them openly, trium23hing over 
them in the cross." Secondly, Christ apphes a 
solvent to the works of the devil, — loosens the 
hold which sin has over us, — by His grace. This 
grace, or, in other words, the influence of His 
Holy Spirit, saps and undermines our love of 
sin, and thus breaks the j^oke wherewith Satan 
hath bound us so fast fi'om our birth, that we 
cannot lift up ourselves towards God, and enjoy 
that blessed communion with Him, which is to 



108 SIXTH SUNDA Y AFTER THE EPIPHANY. 

ttie soul what tlie fresh air and the glorious sun- 
shine are to the bodily frame. 

" And make us the sons of God, and heirs of 
eternal life." Observe that Christ's manifesta- 
tion has a twofold aspect. It is both destructive 
and creative, destructive of sin, which is the 
devil's work, and creative of Divine sonship. I 
say creative of sonship, because, though man, by 
the original construction of his nature, was a son 
of God, he forfeited his sonship by the admission 
of sin; and it has to be restored to him by the 
Sacrament of Baptism, and by the revelation to 
him of the fatherly love of God in Christ. Wlien 
he lays hold of this revelation by faith, the Spirit 
of adoption within him cries, "Abba, Father," 
and draws him for everything he needs to the 
throne of grace, thus enabling him to realize his 
baptism. And heirship goes with sonship ac- 
cording to that word to the Romans and Gala- 
tians: "If children, then heirs; heirs of God, and 
joint-heirs with Christ;" "If a son, then an heir 
of God through Christ." 

" Grant us, we beseech thee, that, having this 
hope, we may purify ourselves, even as He is 
pure." This is the clause in the petition of the 
Collect, which corresponds to the destructive as- 
pect of Christ's manifestation mentioned previ- 
ously. "As Christ was manifested to destroy sin 
by His blood and grace, grant that we, co-oper- 
ating with His grace, may destroy sin." The 
elements of Christian purification are two — 
cleansing ourselves from iilthiness of the flesh, 



SIXTH SUNDA V AFTER THE EPIPHANY. 109 

and from filthiuess of the spirit. A man ma}^ be 
free from sensuality, tlirongli feebleness of temp- 
tation in that department of his nature, or through 
the stress of asceticism, which has subdued the 
flesh, and restrains its promptings; and yet may 
have much defilement of spirit in the shape of 
intellectual pride and spii'itual pride, which are 
only so much the more dangerous as they shock 
the conscience much less than sensual sins. " We 
may keep the devils without the swine," says a. 
good writer, "but not the swine without the 
devils." 

" That, when He shall aj)pear again with power 
and great glory " (as is foretold by Himself in the 
Gospel of the day) " we may be made lilie unto 
Hun in His eternal and glorious kingdom." This 
corresponds to the notice of the creative asj^ect 
of Christ's manifestation in the earher part of 
the prayer, — " that He might make us the sons 
of God and heirs of eternal life." We must not 
lose sight of the fact, which is clearly intimated 
by the Apostle, that the final manifestation of 
Christ to us, and our being made like unto Him, 
will stand in living relation to one another, that 
the first w^ill be the engendering cause of the 
last: — "we know that, when He shall appear, we 
shall be like Him;/b?' we shall see Him as He is." 
When Moses held converse with God on the 
mount, the skin of his face reflected the Divine 
lUstre; and when the risen saint catches sight of 
the glorified Saviour, that glance will in a mo- 
ment transfigure him, in order to the fulfilment 



110 SIXTH SUNDA Y AFTER THE EPIPHANY. 

in liis experience of those words of tlie Psalmist : 
"Wlien I a^^ake up after thy likeness, I shall be 
satisfied with it." It is said that in polar lati- 
tudes animals grow white by always having the 
snow before their eyes; and he who gazes stead- 
fastly upon the "King in His beauty" — upon the 
glorified Hedeemer — shall be changed into the 
same image of beaut}'' and glory " in a moment, 
in the twinkling of an eye." 

The conclusion of this Collect, distinguished 
from similar terminations of the ancient ones by 
the direct invocation of the First and Thii*d Per- 
sons of the Blessed Trinity, is peculiarly solemn 
and august, and has the effect of placing the 
mind of the petitioner full in front of the eternal 
throne, and leading him to prostrate himself be- 
fore it in that spu'it of profound adoration, which 
should pervade all our acts of prayer. 



\ 



SEPTUAGESIMA. Ill 

« 

Or the Third Sunday before Lent. 

Lord, we beseech iliee favorahhj to hear the prayers 
of thy people; thai ice, icho are justly punished for 
our offences, may he mercifully delivered hy thy 
goodness, for the glory of thy N^ame; through Jesus 
Christ our Saviour, who Uveth and reigneth u'ith 
thee and the Holy Ghost, ever one God, icorld with- 
out end. Amen. 

Preces populitui, qucesumus, Domine, clementer exaudi: 
id qui juste pro peccatis nostris affligimur, pro tul 
noviinis gloria miser icorditer liberemur. Per Do- 
minum. (Greg. Sac, Miss. Sar.) 

JN the second year of lier reign Queen Eliza- 
beth gave orders for a translation into Latin 
of the Book of Common Prayer, which might be 
used in the Universities and Public Schools of 
the realm. Copies of this work still exist in tlie 
British Museum and the Bodleian Library. The 
cop3' in the Museum has illuminated initials, after 
the fashion of the day. The collect for Septua- 
gesima Sunday begins with the word " Preces " 
(prayers), and the illumination of the initial P 
" represents a traveller in the act of receiving a 
letter from a venerable-looking man, through the 
bars of a cell in which he is confined.'' There 
can be little doubt that this woodcut is designed 
as an illustration of the Collect, — the key-word of 
which is liberemur, " that we may be mercifully 
delivered" (or liberated). Sin is thought of as a 
captivity or bondage, according to those words 



112 SEPTUAGESIMA. 

of a still more familiar prayer: " Tliough we be 
tied and hound ivith the chain of our sins, yet let 
the pitifulness of thy great mercy loose us." The 
venerable captive in the cell is the sinner return- 
ing to a better mind. The letter with which he 
is charging the traveller is a supplication for deliv- 
erance. And probably the traveller, free to go 
about where he pleases, and ready to start for a 
distant country, is intended to represent an angel, 
charged to deliver the suppliant's message at the 
throne of grace. 

One word is necessary upon the title of the Sun- 
day for which this Collect is provided. As Lent 
consists of forty days, the first Sunda}^ in that 
season used to be called Quadragesima (a word 
formed from quadraginta, the Latin for forty, and 
still retained in the French word for Lent, Ga- 
reme), because, on a rough computation, it would 
fall about forty days from Easter. The three 
preceding Sundays were termed in the same 
way Quinquagesima, Sexagesima, and Septua- 
gesima, because, in round numbers, and count- 
ing by tens, they would be respectively at a dis- 
tance of fifty, sixty, and seventy days from Easter. 
The only noteworthy point in this nomenclature 
is that the Sundays are counted no longer for- 
ward as hitherto (Second, Third, Fourth Sun- 
day after the Epiphany), but backward from 
Lent (Septuagesima, or the Third Sunday be- 
fove Lent, Sexagesima, or the Second Sunday 
before Lent, etc.) On Septuagesima Sunday all 
thought of Ihe Manifestation of Christ, which has 



SEPTUA GESIMA . 113 

occupied our minds since the Festival of the 
Epiphany, is drojDped, and a new period of a 
different character is ushered in. We catch 
to-day our first gUmpse of the great period of 
humiliation, and a cloud falls upon the Church's 
landscape. The Epistle speaks of the possibil- 
ity of failure, not only for those who run in the 
heavenl}" race (that is, make some exertions 
to attain to God's glory), but even for those 
who, like St. Paul, seem foremost in it. The 
Gospel strikes the same note in its concluding- 
sentence, reminding us that, though man}" are 
called to labor in God's vineyard, few are those 
chosen ones who so labor as ultimately to win 
the prize. The Collect is couched in a strain of 
humiliation, and is a penitent suit for forgive- 
ness; and thus we are forcibly reminded by all 
three that a new period of the Christian year, 
sad and solemn, is about to set in. 

" O Lord, we beseech thee favorably to hear 
the prayers of th}^ joeople." The hearing in the 
original Latin is not simple hearing. It is a 
compound verb, which denotes the hearing afar 
off and at a distance. The ten lepers " stood 
afar off" when they said, "Jesus, Master, have 
mercy on us." The publican, whose spirit this 
beautiful prayer breathes, stood " afar off," and 
" smote upon his breast," when he said, " God 
be merciful to me a sinner." It is the word or- 
dinarily employed in the Latin Offices to denote 
God's hearing of a prayer, which is not a simple 
hearing, but a regarding and listening. 



114 SEPTUA GESIMA . 

" That we who are justly punished for our of- 
fences." "Justly ca^t down" is more near the 
original; the notion of punishment residing not 
in the verb, but in the words " justly " and " for 
our offences." Our Judge, who is also our most 
loving and merciful Father, will not, cannot deal 
otherwise than compassionately with those who, 
in any trouble or distress which is sent them, 
confess that they have most righteously de- 
served it. "We indeed justly;" cried the peni- 
tent thief, " for we receive the due reward of our 
deeds." " The good thief," says Francis of Sales, 
'• made of a bad cross a cross of Jesus Christ. 
Unite we then, as the good thief did, our sinner's 
cross to the cross of the Saviour. So, by this 
loving and devout union of our sufferings to the 
sufferings and cross of Jesus Christ, we shall en- 
ter like good thieves into His friendship, and in 
His train into Paradise." Let us digest, during 
the coming Lent, those words of good Nehemiah, 
and seek to make them the key-note of our hu- 
miliation: "Howbeit thou art just in all that is 
brought upon us; for thou hast done right, but 
we have done wickedly." " If we would judge 
ourselves" thus, "we should not be judged." 

" May be mercifully delivered " (set free) " b}^ 
thy goodness." Sin is often spoken of, both in 
the Bible and Prayer Book, as a captivity, a bond- 
age. And, accordingly, part of the predicted 
function of Him who saves from sin is said to be 
" to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the 
opening of the prison to them that are bound." 



SEPTUA GESIMA . 115 

Sin weakens and afflicts all the powers of the 
spiritual life, and degrades the sinner. Sin, wil- 
fully admitted, dims our spiritual light, clogs 
our feet when we wish to walk in the way of 
God's commandments, ties our hands when we 
would do His work, and is a bondage of the will, 
which, through indulgence in sinful pleasures, 
loses its freedom. 

"For the glory of thy Name." Blessed be 
God that He hath Himself put this plea in our 
mouth; and that being, as it is, quite independ- 
ent of anything we have to show in character or 
conduct, it may be urged by those who have 
fallen lowest, and whose case is most grievous. 
"^O Lord, though our iniquities testify against us, 
do thou it for thy name's sake : for our backslid- 
ings are many," says Jeremiah. " Not unto us, 
O Lord, not unto us," joraj^s the Psalmist, " but 
unto thy name give glory, for thy mercy, and for 
thy truth's sake." 

The Collect is appropriately closed with the 
longer and more jubilant formulary, which re- 
cites, not the Mediator's name onl}^ but also His 
exaltation to the right hand of God. The mind 
is thus relieved, amid the shadows which the 
coming Lent casts on it, by the thought of the 
divinity and power of our great Litercessor, a 
remembrance necessary to sustain it through the 
valley of humiliation, into the hollow of which it 
takes its first steps to-day. 



116 SEXA GESIMA . 



Or the Second Sunday before Lent. 

Lord God, who seest that we put not our trust in wiy- 
thing that we do; Mercifulli/ grant thai hy thy power 
we may he defended against all adversity, through 
Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. 

Deus, qui covspicis quia ex nulla nostra actione confidi- 
mus; concede projntius, ut contra omnia adversa doc- 
ioris gentium proiectione muniamur. Per. (Greg. 
Sac, Miss. Sar.) 

A SPECIAL interest attaches to this Collect, 
not so much from its contents, which are 
meagre in comparison with some others, as from 
the material alteration which the principles of 
our Reformers obliged them to make in it. The 
petition of it, as it stands in the Sacramentary of 
Gregory, and as it still is used in the Roman 
Church, runs thus: "Mercifully grant that by the 
protection of the teacher of the Gentiles we may 
be fortified against all adversities." St. Paul is, 
of course, the person referred to, whose tutelage 
is to fortify the petitioner. In both his Epistles 
to Timothy he assumes the designation of " teach- 
er of the Gentiles," preceding it in either Epistle 
by the words " a preacher and an apostle," and 
succeeding it in the first by the clause " in faith 
and verity." The petition of the old Collect 
seems to regard him as being at present, in vir- 
tue of the position which he held upon earth, a 



SEX A GESIMA . 117 

kind of guardian angel of the Gentile Churches, 
one who even in Paradise watched their concerns 
with interest, shielded them from the assaults of 
hostile principalities and powers in the spirit- 
world, one, in short, who held towards these 
Churches very much the same relation, as in the 
tenth chajDter of Daniel certain angels, called re- 
spectively "princes of Persia," "Grecia," and Is- 
rael, seem to hold to the nations placed under 
their patronage. Now, although there is some . 
authority in Holy Scripture for the tutelage of 
angeh — abundant evidence at all events that by 
God's appointment they " succor and defend " 
men " on earth," — there is none whatever for the 
tutelage of departed saints. Sternly, therefore, 
as they were in duty bound, did the E-eformers 
wield the pruning knife on this occasion, and re- 
ferred the fortification of the Church against all 
adversity, not to the protection of the teacher of 
the Gentiles, but simply to the power of God. 
But the old form of the petition still has its in- 
terest, though it is no longer a practical one. It 
should be remarked, while we are uj)on this part 
of the subject, that the original Epistle for this 
day (which consisted of twenty-four verses) 
reached to the end of the ninth verse of the 
twelfth Chapter of the Second E]3istle to the 
Corinthians. Our Reformers curtailed it to 
twelve verses, so that the account of the "vi- 
sions and revelations of the Lord," with which 
St. Paul was favored, was thus omitted alto- 
gether, because it might have tended to foster 



118 SEX A GESIMA . 

the superstitions, connected with his tutelage, 
which had left such evident traces upon the 
Collect. 

" Lord God, who seest that we put not our 
trust in anything that we do." Think not that it 
is an easy thing to refrain from putting our trust 
in the things we do. It is indeed easy enough, 
so long as in God's service we are doing little or 
nothing. If a man has no sacrifices for Christ to 
show in his life, if he has surrendered for Christ's 
sake nothing which he might have retained, if his 
religion — while it has soothed his own conscience, 
and won him the favorable opinion of others, — 
has had no element of self-denial in it, then "to 
put his trust in nothing that he does " is surely 
the cheapest of all virtues. But look at the toils 
and sufferings of St. Paul, as he himself records 
them in this day's Epistle — all undergone, not 
with a free unburdened mind, but under the 
pressure of anxiety and work, connected with the 
churches which he had founded; who that had 
done all this, and submitted to all this, in the 
service of our great Master, would not feel a 
temptation to plume himself on his exertions, his 
self-denials, and to take heart from looking ra- 
ther at what he had done for Christ than at what 
Christ had done for him? St. Pa^l insinuates 
that he felt the temptation to spiritual pride, and - 
felt it so strongly that a special trial was in his 
case needed to prevent his being exalted above 
measure. When the life of a servant of God has 
special trials, he is compensated for them by 



SEX A GESIMA . 119 

special privileges. St. Paul is compensated for 
his "journeyings often," and for all the weari- 
ness and painfiilness and cold and nakedness in- 
volved in them, by being transported in a heav- 
enly vision to the immediate Presence-Chamber 
of God, and then to that Paradise, into which 
the penitent thief after his death had been ad- 
mitted to companionship with the Divine Master. 
But an heir of sinful flesh and blood, so tried and 
so honored, was liable to "be exalted above 
measure." And as God will have "no flesh glory 
in His presence," a thorn in this man's flesh is 
given to him (it ma}^ have been an impediment 
in his speech, or a dimness in his eyesight, or a 
nervous affection oj)erating in some other humili- 
ating manner) to buffet him, and thus to keep 
him in continual mindfulness that, though he 
preaches the Gosj^el, he has nothing to glorj'- of, 
and that the treasure of " the knowledge of the 
glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ" is 
lodged "■ in earthen vessels, that the excellency 
of the power may be of God and not of " man. 
And the state of mind to which he is brought 
by this discii^line is represented thus: "Most 
gladh% therefore, will I rather glory in my in- 
firmities, that the power of Christ" (of God in 
Christ, the power for which the Collect prays as 
our defence against all adversities) "may rest 
upon me." 

But one word must be said on the appeal here 
made to God's omniscience. " O Lord God, who 
knoioed that we put not our trust," etc., — ^"know- 



120 SEXAGESIMA. 

est/' because unto tliee " all hearts be open, all 
desires known, and from tliee no secrets are bid." 
Every one who takes up this Collect into his lips, 
should at least pause before using it, to ask him- 
self these two questions: "Am I doing or under- 
going anything for Christ's sake?" and secondly, 
"Am I putting my trust in the things which I do 
and undergo for Him, rather than in what He 
did and underwent for me ? " How grievous a 
sin it is to come before God, with a lie — with 
an insincere profession — in one's mouth, let the 
doom of Ananias and Sap^Dhira declare. 

" Mercifully grant that by thy power we may 
be defended against all adversity." What we 
must here be understood to deprecate, is not 
that chastisement, which Grod inflicts, "for our 
profit, that we might be partakers of His holi- 
ness," but the pressure, " out of measure, above 
strength," which might prove too severe a trial 
for our faith and patience. By such pressure it 
was that the great teacher of the Gentiles was 
thrown, in desjDair of his own resources, on the 
Divine power, and then delivered. And this 
shows us the answer to a question, which natur- 
ally suggests itself in reviewing this Collect, 
namety, how the two parts of it hang together, — 
how is the petition for defence against all ad- 
versity connected with the plea that "we put 
not our trust in anything that we do " ? The 
answer is that, when a man is beaten out of his 
own resources, then, and not till then, it is that 
he puts his whole trust in God. And so we re- 



QUINQUAGESIMA. 121 

alize in our experience the great truth, which 
" the teacher of the Gentiles " realized in /lis: 
" When I am weak, then am I strong." 



©umquagcsima, 

Or, the Next Sunday before Lent. 

Lord, iclio hast taught iis thai all our doings without 
cliarit)/ are nothing worth; Sendthj/ Holy Ghost, and 
pour into our hearts that most excellent gift of charity, 
the very bond of peace and of all virtues, without 
which whosoever livetli is counted dead before thee; 
Grant this for thine only Son Jesus Christ's sake. 
Amen. (a.d. 1549.) 

THE old Latin Collect, for which our Re- 
formers in 1549 wisely substituted this 
most beautiful production of their own pen, may 
be thus translated: "O Lord, we beseech thee 
favorably to hear our prayers, and, having loosed 
us by absolution from the bonds of our sins, de- 
fend us from all adversity." Two good reasons 
offered themselves for discarding this old form. 
First, one of the clauses had reference to an ex- 
ploded, or at least an expiring, custom. This 
was the custom of confessing' and beino* absolved 

O O 

(or getting shriven) on Shrove Tuesday, in prep- 
aration for the Lenten Communion, by wliich 
shrift it was sought to sanctify the forty days' 
fast. When the shriving on Shrove Tuesday 
fell into abeyance, and the day lost its religious 
character, and (strangely enough) became a day 



122 Q UINQ UA GESIMA. 

of sports and merriment, it was thought well to 
dispense with all allusions to a custom now hon- 
ored in the breach rather than in the observance. 
Secondh^, the original Collect betrayed some 
poverty of thought, the ideas in it having been 
presented to the worshij)per's mind in the two 
wrecks previously. And according^ our Reform- 
ers framed a new Collect out of the Epistle for 
the day, thus bringing that noble passage of Holy 
Scripture into higher relief in connection with 
the Lenten season, on the margin of which we 
are standing. 

Let us not omit to observe in the first place 
the interesting thread of connection which links 
together this Collect with its predecessor. In 
the Sexagesima Prayer we were taught that no 
trust can be put in human doings, even were 
they the labors of a St. Paul, undergone in the 
cause of the Gospel, and for the sake of the Lord 
Jesus: — "O Lord God, who seest that we put 
not our trust in anything that we do." Here the 
lesson upon which the prayer is built is, that 
these "doings," which break down under us 
when we lean upon them, are "without charity 
nothing worth," — -of no avail. The verse of the 
Epistle to which reference is made is the third: 
"And though I bestow all my goods to feed the 
poor " (break it all up into morsels, and dole it 
out in meals to the hungry), "and though I give 
my body to be burned " (like Shadrach, Meshach, 
and Abednego, of whom it is said that "they 
yielded their bodies," a phrase which I cannot 



QUINQUAGESIMA. 123 

doubt to have been iu the AjDostle's mind), " and 
have not charity, it profiteth me nothing." Mar- 
t}Tdom is the cHmax of human " doings " towards 
God. AJmsgiving, when it involves the sacrifice 
of everything we possess, is the chmax of human 
"doings" towards man. St. Matthew, who closed 
his ledger at the call of Christ, ^ind, having made 
out of his gains a great feast in honor of the 
Master, then threw what remained into the com- 
mon stock, from which our Lord and His disci- 
ples were supported; St. Stephen, who yielded 
his body to be stoned in bearing testimon}^ to 
Christ's truth, — these went as far as it is j^ossible 
to men to go in the way of vii'tuous doing. Theii* 
doings, we know, were j^i'ompted by love, and 
through God's mercy gloriously recompensed 
with the crown of righteousness. But could 
such acts as theirs be done icithout love? Cer- 
tainly such a case is conceivable; for otherwise 
the Apostle would not contemplate it. And for 
this plain reason. A man's goods are not him- 
self. A man's body, although a part of his na- 
ture, is not himself. He therefore, who gives his 
substance or who gives his body to God and his 
fellow-creatures, does not necessarily give himself. 
"My son," it is said, "give me thine heart," 
which is thyself. O let us see to it that we give 
our hearts to God in love, to our neighbor in 
sympathy! AYith this supreme gift, the widow's 
mite is accepted and recompensed. Without it, 
the largest offerings of the rich men to the treas- 
ury are nothing accounted of. 



124 Q UINQ UA GESIMA . 

" Send thy Holy Ghost, and pour mto our hearts 
that most excellent gift of charity." We must 
travel here out of the Epistle for a Scriptural 
reference; for nowhere in it is the agency of the 
Blessed Spirit in producing love explicitly men- 
tioned. But we are expressly told in the Epistle 
to the Galatians that " the fruit of the Spirit," — 
the earliest result of His w^orking — "is love." 
And in Romans v., which was doubtless the 
passage principally in the thoughts of the com- 
poser of the Collect, we read, " hope maketh not 
ashamed, because the love of God is shed abroad 
in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given 
unto us." Persons tolerably familiar with the 
exj^osition of St. Paul's Epistles are well aware 
that there is a great question among interpreters 
of Holy Scripture as to whether the love of God, 
of which the Apostle here speaks as shed abroad 
in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, is to be under- 
stood as our love towards Him, or ^w love to- 
wards us. Probably he interprets most safely 
and soundly both the Scriptural passage and the 
petition of the Collect founded upon it, who holds 
that the exj^ression " love of God " in the text, 
and the equivalent expression "most excellent 
gift of charity " in the Collect, should be under- 
stood both of God's love to us and ours to Him, 
— of the first as the source and essence of the 
second. "We love Him," says St. John, "be- 
cause He first loved us." Our love for Him 
bears to His for us exactly the same rela- 
tion which the moonlight bears to the sunJight. 



Q UINQ UA GESIMA . 125 

Moonlight is not only caused by sunlight; it is. 
sunlight reflected from the moon. 

" The very bond of j^eace and of all virtues." 
Here, too, the Collect-writer gives us incidentally 
his interpretation of certain passages of Holy 
Scripture. The first of these is to be found in 
the Epistle to the Ephesians — " endeavoring to 
keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of 
peace." Origen, expounding this phrase, "bond 
of peace," sjDeaks of "love binding together those 
who are united according to the Spirit." The 
Collect-Avriter takes the same view of the mean- 
ino- as Origen. Seeing that it is love which 
holds together the true children of God, he 
thinks that by the phrase "bond of peace" is 
meant "love." And this, though not the only 
possible explanation of the phrase, is a very old 
and very good one. But what are we to make 
of the "bond of all virtues"? Observe, first, 
that the "virtues" here are "the doings" of the 
earlier part of the Collect, — the almsgivings, the 
endurances, and the labors, at ^s^hich we have al- 
ready glanced as being nothing worth without 
love. These virtues need something to bind 
them together, so that they may not drop off 
from us and fall away. The reference is to Col- 
ossians iii. 14, where, after enumerating divers 
graces, which he exhorts Christians to put on, 
" kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, long- 
suffering," and so forth, he adds: "And above all 
these things " (rather, over them all, as a girdle, 
or outer garment, is put on over our other dress) 



126 QUINQUAGESIMA. 

" put on charity, which, is the bond of perfect- 
ness," that is, the power which unites and holds 
together the various graces which constitute per- 
fection. Without love the virtues and elements 
of perfection are a detached series. And when 
our Lord was asked which was the great com- 
mandment of the law. He did not name (prob- 
ably much to the surprise of His questioner) 
any one of the ten; but simply announced the 
first of all the commandments as being that 
which prescribes perfect love to God, and the 
second that which prescribes the loving our 
neighbor as ourselves. 

And thus we pass by a natural sequence of 
thought to the last clause : " Without which who- 
soever liveth is counted dead before thee." A 
strong assertion indeed. Can it be justified by 
Holy Scripture? Most conclusively and abun- 
dantly. "God is love," we are twice solemnly 
assured; and, therefore, he who lives Avithout 
love, — lives only an animal and an intellectual 
life — must be counted dead before Him, since 
love constitutes God's life, His most essential life. 
And therefore we read: "He that loveth not his 
brother abideth in death;" because the life of 
God, which is the true life of all rational crea- 
tures, — the life of love, — has never been quick- 
ened in such an one. And again we hear from 
one Apostle that "faith without works is dead," 
which is tantamount to what another tells us: 
"though I have all faith, . . . and have not char- 
ity, I am nothing." For when St. James speaks 



ASH WEDNESDAY. 127 

of works as the Adtalizing principle of a religious 
profession, he clearly means works, not as sepa- 
rate and detached virtues, but as wrought into a 
living organism by love, works which express and 
betoken the life of love, that life which is akin to, 
and indeed is a scintillation fi'om God's life, and 
in the absence of which "whosoever liveth is 
counted dead before " Him. 



^sJ) aEetinrstias, 

Almigliiy and everlasting God, iclio hatest nothing that 
thou hast made, and dost forgive the sins of all those 
ivho are penitent; Create and make in us new and 
contrite hearts, that we wortliUy lamenting our sins, 
and acknowledging our wretchedness, may ohtain of 
thee, the God of all mercy, perfect remission and for- 
giveness; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. 
'(a.d. 1549). 

THIS Collect may be said to have made its 
earliest appearance in the first Prayer 
Book of Edward YI. (a.d. 1549). For, though 
its invocation and first clause seem to have been 
borrowed from one of the mediaeval Collects 
which were used at the benediction of the ashes 
on Ash Wednesda}^ (before they were laid on the 
heads of members of the congregation with the 
words, " Remember, man, that thou art ashes, 
and unto ashes shalt thou return "), the body of 
the prayer — its petition and aspiration — are quite 
new, and inculcate most important doctrine. 



128 ASH WEDNESDAY. 

"Almighty and everlasting God." "Before 
the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou 
hadst formed the earth and the world, even from 
everlasting to everlasting thou art God." One 
object of the prayer being to produce and 
foster in the heart a feeling of profound humil- 
iation, those attributes of Almighty God are ap- 
propriatety recited in the opening clause, which 
bring before us His Majesty and loftiness. He 
is omnipotent; He is everlasting; His being has 
no limits, but reaches from the past into the fu- 
ture Eternity. 

"Who hatest nothing that thou hast made." 
The implication here is, though the thought is 
not expressed, " however man maj' have abused 
and spoiled it." Man's nature became, by the 
fall, debased and depraved, blinded and hard- 
ened. God, however, hates not him, but the sin 
that is in him. There are noble capacities in 
man, however depraved and debased — capacities 
of mind and heart — which God would gladly see 
unfolded in. His service. Our nature was orig- 
inally made with exquisite skill for the enjoy- 
ment of no lower an end than that of commun- 
ion with God. Could a painter, a statuary, a 
poet, bear to see the productions, on which they 
had stamped the impress of their genius, con- 
signed to the flames, or dashed or torn to pieces ? 
One of the old saints used continually to plead 
this tie with God in the touching words: "Thou 
who hast moulded and formed me, have compas- 
sion on me." 



ASH WEDNESDAY. 129 

" And dost forgive the sins of all those who are 
penitent." Tlie Scrij^tures, both of the Old and 
New Testaments, abound with j^romises to re- 
pentance. The passage in the first chapter of 
Isaiah, where we are exhorted to "wash and 
make" iis "clean," to "put away the evil of" our 
" doings from before ' God's " eyes," to " cease to 
do evil" and "learn to do well," with the assur- 
ance which is given to those who do so, " Though 
your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as 
snow; though they be red like crimson, they 
shall be as wool," is perhaps the grandest, in 
point of style, of all these promises. And lest 
any one should say that under the Gospel re- 
pentance is superseded as a condition of pardon, 
St. Peter, in the second sermon delivered by him 
after the descent of the Holy Ghost, says, " Re- 
pent ye therefore, and be converted, that your 
sins may be blotted out." 

"Create and make in us new and contrite 
hearts." The phraseology is drawn from the 
fifty-first Psalm. ''Create in me a clean heart, O 
God ; and renew a right sj^irit within me. . . . The 
sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken 
and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise." 
Prayers of this kind imply that repentance, if a 
duty of man, is also the special gift of God; that 
it is not due so much to human endeavor, as to 
the Divine blessing upon that endeavor. And 
accordingly it is written, " Him hath God exalted 
with His right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour, 
for to give repentance to Israel, and forgiveness 



130 ASH WEDNESDAY. 

of sins." Forgiveness of sins, it will be admifcted, 
is clearly a Divine gift. Observe, then, that in 
this passage repentance is spoken of as being 
equally so. 

Then, again, conside].* the words " Create and 
make." To make is to manufacture. To create 
is to produce out of nothing. The language is 
designed to show in the most forcible and em- 
phatic manner, that there are in us by nature no 
rudiments at all of the new and contrite heart; 
that it has to be formed within us by the brood- 
ing of the Spirit of Grod upon the shaj^eless chaos 
of a heart void of good. How then in such a 
heart is repentance to be engendered? By an 
exertion of His creative power, " who turned the 
hard rock into a standing water; and the flint- 
stone into a sj)ringing well." He has no less 
power over the hard and flinty heart, to ehcit 
from it the well-spring of penitential tears. 

And j^erhaps we may learn from the word 
" create " this further lesson, that, just as St. 
Paul speaks of that which was lacking in the 
faiili of the Thessalonians being perfected, so re- 
pentance also has various stages of advancement, 
and admits of being more and more developed, 
and at length perfected. 

"That we worthily lamenting our sins." Note 
the word " worthily," how carefully chosen it is. 
The sorrow of the best of us for our sins is 
by no means adequate ; worldly losses and dis- 
appointments — nay, sometimes, losses and disap- 
pointments of a trifling character — awaken in us 



ASH WEDNESDAY. 131 

a much livelier and deeper sentiment of concern. 
Therefore we pray that we may lament oui' sins 
worihihj, — in a manner worthy of the insult of- 
fered to God, and of the risk and damage in- 
curred to our own souls thereby. — Yet observe, 
on the other hand, that the expression is duly 
weighed, — that there is nothing exaggerated in 
it. Some people have prayed that they might 
be able to see their sins in the same light in 
which God sees them, — an indiscreet and ill- 
considered prayer ; for surely if we saw our sins 
with the eye of Infinite Holiness, the spectacle, 
so far from being a benefit to us, would drive 
us to despaii'. " Godly sorrow," — not is, but — 
"worketh repentance to salvation not to be re- 
pented of." That sorrow, and that alone, is 
"worthy" and adequate, which leads to, and is- 
sues in, the change of mind and heart called 
repentance. 

" And acknowledging our wretchedness." The 
"wretchedness " is the original corruption of our 
nature — the sin that is in us, as distinct from 
" our sins " — and also the still worse and more 
hopeless plight into which we have fallen by ac- 
tual transgression. Observe again the accuracy 
and propriety of the diction. As to our " sins," 
we are to lament them; as to our "wretched- 
ness," we are to acknowledge it. 

"May obtain of thee, the God of all mercy, 
perfect remission and forgiveness." The perfect 
remission balances and corresponds to the worthy 
lamentation. If the lamentation and acknowl- 



132 ASH WEDNESDAY. 

eclgment are worthy, if they have led on to re- 
pentance, they will win a perfect remission. The 
penitent believer is at present in the fullest en- 
joyment of j)ardon through the blood of Christ. 
'God's still small voice within him whispers this 
pardon, and his conscience re-echoes the whis- 
per. As a further assurance, he has the word 
of Ministerial Absolution, the exercise of the 
power which the Lord committed to His Church, 
when He said, " WhosesoeA^er sins ye remit, they 
are remitted unto them." But all this falls short 
of the final sentence of acquittal at the last day, 
when the man shall give account of himself to 
God, and his faith shall be shown to have been 
genuine by his works, and his name shall be seen 
inscribed in the book of life, on its being sol- 
emnly opened before an assembled uniA^erse. 
Then the remission which has been whispered in 
the conscience, and proclaimed in the Church 
militant, shall be published in the Church tri- 
umphant, and thus become "perfect." 

"Bemission and forgiveness" — are they one 
and the same thing? One and the same thing- 
doubtless; but under different aspects. Forgive- 
ness is of an offence; if you injure me, I forgive 
you. Remission is of a debt; if you owe me a 
sum of money, I remit it. So that the twofold 
expression carries us back to the Lord's Pra^^er, 
St. Matthew's version of which has, " Forgive us 
our debts," w^liile St. Luke's version runs, " For- 
giA^e us our sins;" — remission and forgiA^eness. 
Bv sin Ave incur a debt to God, for we owe obe- 



I 



. THE FIRST SriVDAV LV LENT. 133 

dience to His law; aud sin is the non-payment of 
this obedience. By sin, too, we incur a debt of 
punishment to the Divine Justice; having been 
wrong-doers, we ought to suifer the j^enalty. 
Both these debts our Blessed Lord has j^aid in 
full. 



SDije jFirst $untra2 in iLent/ 

Lord, u'hofor our aakc didst fast forty days and forty 
nights; Give us grace to use such abstinence, thai, 
our flesh being subdued to the Spirit, we may ever 
obey thy godly motions in righteousness, and true 
holiness, to thy honor and glory, ii'ho livest and 
reignest with the Father and the Holy Ghost, one 
God, world without end.. Amen. (a.d. 1549.) 

'T'^^HIS is one of the three Collects addressed 
-L to our Lord, the other two being those 
for the Third Sunday in Advent and for St. 
Stej^hen's Day. The three may all be counted 
as new Collects; that on which we are at present 
engaged was composed by the Reformers in 
1549. The reason why they discarded the Sa- 
rum Collect for the First Sunday in Lent may 
have been that it sj^oke of Lent rather too 
pointedly as a divine ordinance, and a part of 
God's instrumentality in the kingdom of grace. 
It was a safer course to refer the idea of the 
institution to our Lord's fast of forty days, 
recorded by the first three Evangelists, while 
speaking of the obligation of fasting in such gen- 



134 THE FIRST SUNDAY JN LENT. 

eral terms as should not imply that any particu- 
lar period of time was prescribed by Divine 
authority. 

As to the. Collect's being addressed to our Lord, 
we may here usefully recapitulate what has been 
previously said on this point. One reason why 
Collects were very rarely addressed to the Son 
of God probably was, that the Office of the Holy 
Communion, of which the Collect is a main fea- 
ture, is a commemoration of the Sacrifice of 
Christ, and a representation of that Sacrifice in 
the Church on earth. Now the Sacrifice of Christ 
was offered to the Father through and by the 
Son; and, therefore, as the Office has the sacri- 
ficial thought ever^'where pervading it, the na- 
tural and regular order of things is that all the 
prayers used in it should be addressed to the 
Father through the Son. This Collect for the 
First Sunday in Lent forms an exception to 
the general rule, perhaps in order that we may 
distinctly recognize this same tempted, hunger- 
ing Jesus, while exhibiting all the infirmities of 
our flesh, as being nevertheless the eternal Son 
of God, a glorious truth revealed from heaven at 
the Baptism of Christ, but of which the devil 
thought to instil a doubt, when he said, "If thou 
be the Son of God, command that these stones be 
made bread." 

"O Lord, who for our sake didst fast forty 
days and forty nights." The characteristic fea- 
ture of this clause is the "for our sake." Our 
Lord fasted for our sake in two senses. First, 



THE FIRST SUNDAY IN LENT. 135 

as " bearing our sins in His own body," not " on 
the tree " only, but in the wilderness. Fasting 
is the outward expression of mourning, humilia- 
tion, penitence. In our Lord was no sin, for 
which He needed to humble Himself and re2:)ent. 
But as " the second man," who identified Him- 
self with us in every respect, He entangled 
Himself yoluntarilj in all the consequences of 
our fall. He made Himself completely one with 
us, as in all other respects, so in humiliation and 
mourning for sins. This, then, is one (and the 
highest) sense in which Christ "fasted for our 
sake." — But He fasted also in an exemj)lary, as 
well as an expiatory, sense. He came to be not 
only " a sacrifice for sin," but " also an ensample 
of godly life." Godly life cannot be without the 
mortification of the lower nature or fiesh, of 
which lower nature the bod}^ is both an organ 
and also a sacrament or symbol. And Christ 
Avould . teach us this by His forty days' fast (a 
fast of extraordinary seyerity, and which 'could 
be sustained only by miracle, and therefore can- 
not be literally imitated) that without keeping 
under the body and bringing it into subjection 
there can be no winning of the heayenly prize. 
If without this self-discipline even the Apostle 
St. Paul felt that he could not succeed, how 
shall feebler Christians hope that they may dis- 
pense with it ? 

" Giye us grace to use such abstinence, that, 
our flesh being subdued to the Spirit." The 
capital initial of the word " Spirit," as it apj^ears 



136 THE FIRST SUNDA V IN lENT. 

in our present Prayer Books, sliows, of course, 
that God's Spirit is meant. " Spirit," however, 
has not always had a capital initial. It appeared 
with a capital in Edward's First Book; lost it 
three years afterwards in his Second Book; and 
remained without a capital down to 1661. If a 
small initial is used, the word " spirit " might 
mean the higher element of our nature (which 
consists, as St. Paul teaches in 1 Thess. v., of 
"spirit, soul, and body"); and in that case the 
petition would be that by abstinence the lower 
part of our nature might be brought into sub- 
jection to the higher. But since the higher part 
of our nature cannot possibly gain the mastery 
of the lower, without being quickened and 
strengthened by the Holy Spirit of God, whose 
influence alone can give a right direction to our 
spirit, it is much better to suppose that the Holy 
Spirit is here meant, or rather the Holy Spirit, 
as animating and actuating ours. The phraseol- 
ogy of the Collect points at something more than 
a single act, or even a succession of single acts. 
" That, our flesh being subdued to the Spirit " 
indicates a date of subjection, a habit which is 
formed gradualty, and, hke other habits, can 
only be formed by repeated acts. — Remark, 
too, that what the Collect speaks of as being- 
brought into subjection, is "the flesh," which 
means, as I have observed, not so much the ma- 
terial body as that corrupt nature, the chief or- 
gan of which is the body. It is not merely sen- 
suality which has to be mortified under the 



THE FIRST SUNDAY IN LENT. 137 

Spirit's influence, but temper, vanity, jealousy, 
and a hundred things besides. 

"We may ever obey thy godh^ motions in 
righteousness and true holiness." "VVe read in 
St. Paul's Epistle to the Komans of "the mo- 
tions of sins" (passions instigating to sin), "which 
were by the law," working " in our members, to 
bring forth fruit unto death." Here we are told 
of " motions " in an opposite direction, the in- 
stigations made b}^ our Lord Jesus Christ in the 
hearts of His people, their compliance with which 
redounds to His honor and glory, and their sal- 
vation. — " Righteousness and true holiness " is a 
phrase borrowed from St. Paul's Ej^istle to the 
Ephesians, where these graces are said to be the 
characteristic features of "the new man." "■True 
holiness " here means something more than real, 
genuine holiness. The lusts are called "lusts 
of deceit," because they have a tendency to blind 
our eyes, to cheat and cozen us, and make us 
think about sin with levity. Holiness, on the 
other hand, is called " holiness of truth," or true 
holiness, because it shows sin and other spiritual 
subjects as they really are, and as we shall view 
them when the dawn of eternity quenches all 
artificial lights. 

" To thy honor and glor3\" But how does 
mortification by the Spirit of the deeds of the 
body, and obedience to Christ's motions in the 
heart, redound speciall}" to His honor and glory V 
The Collect-writer here holds fast to Scripture. 
For it is said, "Know ye not that your bodies 



138 THE FIRST SUNDA Y IN LENT. 

are the members of Christ?" And again; "We 
are members of His body, of His flesli, and of 
His bones." Hid, body was a temple for the per- 
sonal indwelling of the Son of God, as He de- 
clared when He said to the Jews, " Destroy this 
temple, and in three days I will raise it up." 
Our bodies are the temples in which He dwells 
by the Spirit; as it is said, "Know ye not that 
your bodies are the members of Christ ? " and 
immediately afterwards, " Know ye not that your 
body is the temple of the Holy Ghost ? " There- 
fore any vindication of the purity of this temple 
necessaril}^ redounds to the honor of Him who 
dwelleth therein. 

Our final observation shall be upon the wise 
and holy moderation of this prayer. It intimates 
clearly enough that abstinence is to be practised 
by Christians (for why else should we pray for 
grace to practise it?), while it leaves the kind 
and measure of abstinence to be determined and 
limited by the end in view. Whether the absti- 
nence is to be from food, or amusements, or lux- 
uries and comforts; whether from all food, or 
only from the more palatable forms of it; whether 
it is to be total or partial; these are questions 
which each man must answer for himself under 
the guidance of God's Spirit, and which will be 
answered differently according to the infinitely 
varying circumstances and temperament of the 
persons, who are to submit themselves to the 
disciphne. The great point, and the only es- 
sential point, is that, by whatever form and 



THE SECOND SUNDAY IN LENT. 130 

measure of discipline, the end should be se- 
cured. And the end is, that the rebellious flesh 
should be so controlled and brought into sub- 
jection, that the insjoirations of the Saviour b}' 
the Si)irit should be heeded and comi^lied with, 
and the members of our bodies yielded readily 
and wiUinglv as instruments of righteousness 
unto God. 



Abnif/hti/ God, who seest thai we have no j^ower o/ our- 
selves to help ourselves; Keep ns both out war dh/ in 
our bodies, and inwardly in our souls; that we may 
be defended from all adversities which may happen 
to the body, and from all evil thoughts idIiicIi may 
assault and hurt the soul; through Jesus Christ our 
Lord. Amen. 

Deus, qui consplcis omni nos virtute destitui; interius 
e.Tteriusque custodi, id ab omnibus abversitatibus mii- 
niamur in corpore, et a pravis cogilationibus mun- 
demur in mente. Per Dom in um. (Greg. Sac. , Miss. 
Sab.) 

LENT is the season when we commemorate oui* 
Lord's conflict with and victory over the 
devil, — that conflict and victor}- which opened in 
the wilderness after the forty days' fast, when the 
devil thrice assaulted Christ, and was thrice jDierced 
with the sword of the Spirit. Now Christ's con- 
flict with and victory over the powers of evil was 
not for Himself alone. It was a victory won, 
not only in man and by man, inasmuch as He 
took to Himself a perfect human nature, but 



140 THE SECOND SUNDAY IN LENT. 

for man, and even for that portion of tlie liuman 
race who, as being farthest from God, were most 
entirely under Satan's dominion. And thus we 
advance, by a sequence of thought at once beau- 
tiful and edifying, from the Gospel of the First 
Sunday in Lent to that for the Second, in which 
is recorded the touching incident of the restora- 
tion of the Syrophoenician's daughter, who was 
grievously vexed with a devil. 

"Almighty God, who seest that we have no 
power of ourselves to help ourselves;" — an en- 
largement on the original in Gregory's Sacra- 
mentary, which ran thus, "who seest that we 
are destitute of all j^ower." The addition of the 
words " to help ourselves " makes the reference 
to the Gospel a little more explicit; for no hu- 
man creatures were ever so helpless as the demo- 
niacs. Such an one had lapsed entirety into the 
power of the evil one, was tyrannized over at his 
pleasure, crushed and spurned beneath his hoof. 

If we are not possessed by the devil, we are, 
at least, apt to be sorely" tempted by him. Here, 
then, is a prayer for us, — the prayer which, in 
the Canaanite's mouth, won such glorious deliv- 
erance, and which, in ours, if accompanied with 
equal faith, will be equally effective, whatever 
our trial or temptation may be: "Lord, help 
me; run to me with thy Divine succor; for I am 
stricken down in the spuitual combat, and mine 
enemies stand over me triumphing, as I lie 
prostrate." 

" Keep us both outwardly in our bodies, and 



THE SECOND SUNDA V IN LENT. 141 

inwardly iu our souls." The order of the ad- 
verbs in the original, "Keep us both inwardly 
and outwardly/' is better than in the translation, 
because the keeping of the soul is not only the 
more important point, but secures, more or less, 
the guardianship of the body. If demoniacal pos- 
session does not exist nowadaj^s, or, at least, is 
never fully developed (a fact which is perhaps 
too readily assumed), at all events there are 
amongst us shadows of it, which, more or less, 
indicate what it was. Mania is another word for 
madness, and implies that the mind of the pa- 
tient is more or less deranged; that his power 
of will and moral resistance has been shattered 
by indulgence, and can no more make head 
against the access of the disorder. 

"That we ma}' be defended from all adversities 
which may happen to the body, and from all evil 
thoughts which may assault and hurt the soul." 
The original Latin is rather richer in idea, inas- 
much as different verbs are used in suing for 
bodily and spuitual blessings. Cleansing, not 
defence, is what is sued for in regard of the 
mind; — "that we may be defended from all 
adversities in body, and cleansed from evil 
thoughts in mind " — according to the phrase- 
ology of that other noble Collect with which the 
Communion Service opens: "Cleanse the thoughts 
of our hearts by the inspiration of thy Holy Spirit. " 
To pray " Defend us from evil thoughts " does 
not necessarily imply that we are under their 
power at present. But the petition to be 



142 THE SECOND SUNDA Y IN LENT. 

cleansed from tliem does, of course, assume 
that the thoughts of our hearts are naturally 
bad, "From withm," said our Lord, echomg, 
as was His wont, the earlier Scriptures, " from 
within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil 
thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, 
covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, 
an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness: all 
these evil things come from within, and defile 
the man." The mind can only be cleansed from 
this defilement by the inspiration of God's Holy 
Spirit. 

Defence from evil thoughts, not already en- 
gendered in the heart, but liable to assault us 
at any moment, and to hurt us unless resistance 
is offered to them, — this also, no less than cleans- 
ing from them, is a blessing to be sought in 
earnest prayer. Observe that evil thoughts may 
assault without hurting. They cannot hurt, if 
no encouragement is given to them; if, on the 
first moment of our becoming conscious of 
them, we oust them by a vigorous effort of the 
will. "Let the wicked forsake his way," it is 
said, " and the unrighteous man his thoughts." 
And the way to forsake them is to do with them 
as St. Paul did with the " vijDcr " which " came 
out of the heat, and fastened on his hand " — to 
shake them off into their native element, the fire 
of hell, and to occupy the mind actively with 
some other subject. The devout recital of holy 
texts and psalms will be a great help in doing 
this; for which purpose it is necessary to have 



THE SECOND SUNDAY IN LENT. 143 

much of the practical and devotional part of 
Hoi J Scripture by heart, that, when evil thoughts 
make their assault, the sword of the Spirit may 
be without delay unsheathed for service. " Thy 
word have I hid in mine heart " (treasured it up 
in my memory), "that I might not sin against 
thee." 

This Collect draws its point, as we have seen, 
from the case of demoniacal possession to which 
the Gospel refers. How then, it might be asked, 
since demoniacal possession is supposed to have 
ceased nowadays, can it have any just and ap- 
propriate reference to the circumstances of mod- 
ern Christians? The answer is that, although 
possession may no longer exist, yet what un- 
questionably does exist bears a close relation and 
analogy -to it. Satan still operates in a natural 
way upon the faculties of the human soul, upon 
the memory, the understanding, the imagination, 
and the will; and these operations bear to de- 
moniacal possession very much the same relation 
w^hich the ordinary operations of the Holy Ghost 
bear to His miraculous gifts. Neither the Spirit 
of God nor His great antagonist have ceased to 
act, because suj)ernatural phenomena are now 
exhibited by neither of them; and it is by con- 
templating these phenomena, as they once were 
exhibited, that we gain a notion, on the one 
hand, of the malignit}^ of the evil one, and of 
the power and glorio'Asness of the agency of 
God's Spirit on the "other. 



144 THE THIRD SUNDAY IN LENT. 



We beseech thee, Almightij God, look upon ilie lieariij 
desires of thy humble servants, and stretch forth tJie 
right hand of thy Majesty, to he our defence against 
all our enemies, through Jesus Christ our Lord. 
Amen. 

Qucesumus, omnij)otens Deus, vota humilium respice, 
atque ad defensionem nosiram dexteram tuce ma- 
jestatis extende. Per Dominum. (Geeg. Sac, 
Miss. Sae.) 

OUR Reformers have here also expanded 
the idea by the introduction of two or 
three words. The old Collect ended with the 
word " defence." They have added " against all 
our enemies." And hereby, as in the preceding- 
Collect, they have made the reference to the 
Gospel of the day a little more explicit. Last 
Sunday's Gospel, it will be remembered, recorded 
the casting out, by an act of our Lord's will, of 
the devil, or unclean spirit, who was grievously 
vexing the Canaanite woman's daughter. Nor, 
in the present Collect, have we lost sight alto- 
gether of that touching narrative. It is still upon 
our minds, haunting our memories. For here 
we pray God to " look u]3on the hearty desires 
of" His "humble servants." Hearty indeed were 
the desires of the Canaanite mother. But in the 
Gospel for the present Sunday a still more ter- 
rific picture is exhibited to us of the power of 



THE THIRD SUNDAY IN LENT. 145 

the Evil One. Our Lord tliere teaches that even 
where Satan has been once cast out, if the house 
of the heart be not secured by the tenancy of a 
heavenly visitant, he will return again to his old 
domicile, taking " with him seven other spirits 
more wicked than himself," all of whom " enter 
in and dwell there." The Collect, therefore, cast- 
ing a glance forward on its own Gospel, as it had 
cast a glance backward on that of the previous 
Sunday, prays, not for defence simply, but for 
"defence against all our enemies;" these ene- 
mies being, in the first instance, the principali- 
ties and powers against which we wrestle, and, 
subordinately to them, their two great allies, the 
world and the iiesli. 

" "We beseech thee, Almighty God, look upon 
our hearty desires " (" vows " it is in the original), 
that is, upon the earnestness and fervor of our 
jjrayers. Alas ! how often have our prayers been 
mere lip-service instead of the expression of hearty 
desii'e, in which case it is not to be wondered at 
that God has not looked back on them (such is 
the force of the original word, which denotes a 
gesture like that made by our Lord when He 
turned back toward the weeping daughters of 
Jerusalem, and took notice of their tears) ; for no 
cr}^ reaches His ear save the cry of the heart. 

"Of thy humble servants." We may ascer- 
tain whether we pray humbly, by inc[uiriug how 
much we manifest of the Canaanite mother's 
spirit. Do we take rebuffs at God's hand meek- 
ly and lovingly, and persevere still in prayer in 



M6 THE THIRD SUNDAY IN LENT. 

spite of tliem all — rebuffs coming from His si- 
lence, or from some rough and apparently dis- 
heartening word spoken in our conscience (as 
though the blessings / and comforts and privi- 
leges of the Gospel were not for sinners so vile as 
we), or from providential trials, such as sickness, 
bereavement, and poverty? But again: it is well 
to make our praj^^^ers flow in the channel marked 
out for them by God's promises, to rest our 
hopes of an answer upon some express word of 
His. And here we have such an express word 
in the tenth Psalm, which runs thus: "Lord, 
thou hast heard the desire of the humble: thou 
wilt prej)are their heart " (the marginal render- 
ing is nearer to the original, " thou wilt establish 
their heart "), "thou wilt cause thine ear to hear." 
Thus we have God's own assurance of His listen- 
ing to the hearty desires of the humble. 

" And stretch forth the right hand of thy Ma- 
jesty to be our defence." Again a petition is put 
into our mouth, suggested, inspired by God Him- 
self. For it is only an echo of what we find in 
Psalm cxxxviii. : " Thou shalt stretch forth thine 
hand against the wrath of mine enemies, and thy 
right hand shall save me." But let us not fail to 
appreciate the full force of the expression, " the 
right hand of thy Majesty." The Christian knows 
that at the right hand of God's Majesty there is 
both power and sympathy. Sympathy — -because 
our Lord, who took upon Him all the infirmities 
of our flesh, and " was in all points tempted like 
as we are," is now seated " on the right hand of 



THE THIRD SUNDAY TN LENT. 147 

the Majesty on liigli." Power — because this as- 
cended and exalted Sayiour, in the days of His 
flesh, defeated the devil for us, "through death" 
destroying "him that had the power of death, 
that is, the devil," and, " having spoiled princi- 
j)alities and j^owers, made a show of them openly, 
triumphing over them in" "His cross." St. Ste- 
phen, under the cruel assault of his persecutors, 
saw this Conqueror of the strong man armed 
" standino- at the rio-ht hand of God " to succor 
His martyr. And from that glorified Form, on 
the right hand of the Majesty on high, must flow 
forth even now the sympathy and succor we need 
under the assaults of our spiritual foes. 

"Against all our enemies." This expression 
estahhshes, as we have already remarked, an in- 
teresting connection between the Collect and the 
GosjDel, the latter giving an account of the re- 
entry" of Satan, with " seven other spirits more 
wicked than himself," into a heart from which 
he had been temporaiily ejected. Satan, as be- 
ing only a creature of God, cannot himself be 
omnipresent; yet the legions of evil spirits, 
which move in obedience to his command, and 
are ever^^where doing his work, make him vir- 
tually so. Nor must it be forgotten, in speaking 
of " all our enemies," that, over and above evil 
angels, there are arrayed against us the world 
and the flesh — in other words, evil men and evil 
self; and that these three constitute an unholy 
Trinity; three separate yet allied powers, actu- 
ated by a common design of drawing us away 



148 THE FOURTH SUNDAY IN LENT. 

from our Father, Redeemer, and Sanctifier — the 
survey of which may well make us watchful, hum- 
ble, and constant in prayer, while it never need 
discourage or make us distrustful, " because 
greater is He that is in you than he that is in 
the world.'' 



SCfje Joiirtf) $unt(a2 \\\ ILent- 

Grants tee beseech thee, Ahnighiy God, that ive, icho/or 
our evil deeds do worthily deserve to he iiiuiished, by 
the comfort of thy grace may mercifully be relieved, 
through our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen. 

Concede, quceswnus, omnipotens Deus, ut qui ex merito 
nostrcE actionis ajffligimur, tuce qratice consolatione 
respiremus. Per Bominum. (Geeg. Sac, Miss. 
Sae.) 

AS in the wilderness, after making trial of 
the bitter waters of Marah, the children 
of Israel came to an oasis called Elim, "where 
were twelve wells of water, and threescore and 
ten palm trees; and they encamped there by the 
waters; " so in the heart of Lent, when sin, its 
guilt, and its consequences, are the subjects up- 
permost in onr thoughts, the true Israel of God 
linds a Sunday called from a very early period 
"Dominica Refectionis," Refreshment Sunday, 
where they encamp, as it were, in a green pas- 
ture, beside the waters of comfort. The Gospel, 
Epistle, and Collect of this Sunday are a cord 
with three silver strands, most artfully and beau- 
tifully twisted together. The Epistle spiritual- 



THE FOURTH SUNDAY IN LENT. 149 

izes the Gospel; the Collect takes it uj) as spirit- 
ualized, and turns it into a praj^er. The GosjDel 
gives the account of the feeding in the wilderness 
of the five thousand who had followed Christ 
thither. It was, no doubt, the recital of this tale 
of wonder in the Gospel which led to the Sun- 
da3'"s being called " Kefreshment Sunday-." But 
the bodily refreshment ministered by our Lord 
on this occasion was symbolical of our higher 
spiritual refreshment by His grace, and the sac- 
raments of His grace. The Epistle leads us or 
to another sort of burden and weariness, besides 
that arising from sickness, or from a journey 
through a desert place. For it speaks of two 
covenants, the covenant of the Law and the cov- 
enant of Grace. The Law's terms of life are: 
" The man that doeth them shall live in them." 
The Gospel's terms of life are: " Believe on the 
Lord Jesus Christ " (the Curse-bearer, the Law- 
fulfiller), "and thou shalt be saved." "This is 
the record, that God hath given to us eternal 
life " (it is not a thing gained, but a thing given), 
"and this hfe is in His Son." To have the yoke 
of unforgiven sin hanging round one's neck, and 
to w^ork by way of earning forgiveness, this is a 
bondage, a drudgery, a w^eariness indeed. And 
it is from this bondage and drudgery princijio^Jn 
that our Lord promises deliverance when He 
saj's: "Come unto me, all that travail and are 
heavy laden, and I will refresh you (will give 
3'ou rest)." The Epistle having thus taught us 
how to spii'itualize the Gospel, the Collect takes 



150 THE FOURTH SUNDAY IN LENT. 

up the Gospel in the sense put upon it by the 
Epistle, and turns it into a prayer. 

" Grant, we beseech thee, Almighty God, that 
we, who for our evil deeds do worthily deserve 
to be punished." A finishing touch was given to 
this clause by Cosin at the Revision of 1661. 
By the slightest possible alteration of the word- 
ing, variety of idea was introduced into the Col- 
lect. On Septuagesima Sunday we prayed that 
"we, who are justly punished for our offences, 
may be mercifully delivered by thy goodness." 
And so the first clause of this Collect also stood 
in the Missal of Sarum, and so Cranmer and his 
colleagues translated it: " Grant that we, who for 
our evil deeds are worthily punished; " — that is, the 
original represents the petitioner as undergoing 
punishment already. Cosin, having allowed the 
same phrase to stand in the Septuagesima Collect, 
in that before us dexterously altered the '^ are 
worthily" to "do worthily deserve to be," thus 
calling the mind off from present chastisement, 
and throwing it forward into a judgment which is 
apprehended in future — the judgment of the last 
great day. By an act of the imagination we place 
ourselves beforehand at the bar; and finding that 
we cannot, when so arraigned, answer God to one 
charge in a thousand, we fall low on our knees 
before Him, and confess that for our evil deeds 
we " do worthily deserve to be punished." Our 
prayer is that even now, while Ave labor under 
these gloomy and disquieting apprehensions, we 
" may, by the comfort of His grace, mercifully be 



THE FOURTH SUNDAY IN LENT. 151 

relieved." On Septuagesima Sunday the praj'er 
was that we might be mercifully delivered by 
God's "goodness, for the glory of" His "name"; 
■ — this was our plea with Him to obtain deliver- 
ance, the glory of His character. Who is good- 
ness and love. Now, in the present Collect, the 
raetliod of our deliverance is specified; the relief or 
refreshment is to be " by the comfort of His grace." 
Grace ! what tongue shall tell the treasures of 
that word? Its fundamental meaning must be 
pardon, freely given as regards ourselves, though 
it cost our Surety and Representative so great a 
price of suffering and hardship to obtain it for 
us. Then, secondly, it must mean the peace 
Avhich flows from the consciousness of this par- 
don, from the assurance, given by God's Spirit in 
the soul, that it is our own, and that we have 
truly embraced it. And is this all? No; not 
all, by any means; not all we need, nor all vre 
are in Christ entitled to. The English word 
" comfort," considered in its derivation, does not 
simply mean that quieting and soothing of the 
soul, which may be effected by a mere powerless 
expression of sympathy. It comes from the late 
Latin conforto, to strengthen physically, or morally, 
or both. "When" Paul "had received meat," 
coftfortatus est, "he was strengthened." "There ap- 
peared unto " Christ " an angel from heaven," con- 
fortans eum, " strengthening Him." God the Holy 
Ghost is called another Comforter ("I will pray the 
Father, and He shall give you another Comforter"), 
and most assuredly His blessed office is not only 



152 THE FIFTH SUNDAY IN IE NT. 

to slied peace abroad in the lieart, by assuring us 
of God's forgiveness, but to give us the moral 
strength which is born of that assurance. When 
He first descended on the Church at Pente- 
cost, the Apostles " out of weakness were made 
strong," and those who a few weeks before had 
forsaken their Master in cowardly flight, or even 
denied Him, were now bold as a lion in confess- 
ing Him before magisti^ates and councils. The 
grace of God (which is the action of His Spir- 
it upon the heart) comforts, not the feelings 
and affections only, but the will; and to comfort 
the will is to strengthen it and make it vigorous. 
And remember that any comfort which does not 
invigorate the will, is only too likely to be an il- 
lusion. The will is the man; and he who has 
not surrendered his will to God has not surren- 
dered himself. 



Cf}e JFtftlj $untiag in ILeixt* 

We beseecJi tliee, Almighty God, mercifully to look upon 
thy peojole; that by thy great goodness they may he 
governed and preserved evermore, both in body and 
soul; through Jesu^ Christ our Lord. Amen. 

Qucesumus, omnipotens Deus, familiam tuam propitius 
respice; ut te largiente regatur in corpore, et te ser- 
vanie custodiatur in mente. Per Dominiim. (Sac. 
G:pEG., Miss. Sae.) 

THE Christian Easter corresponds, as every 
one knows, to the Jewish Passover. The 
celebration of the Passover began on the four- 



THE FIFTH SUNDAY IN LENT. 153 

teentli day of the month Abib, when the Paschal 
lamb was to be slain in the evening. Abib, be- 
ing the month of the Exodus, was honored by 
being made the first month of the Jewish eccle- 
siastical year; consequently, there was a fortnight 
of preparation intervening between the begin- 
ning of the year and the Passover. The Chris- 
tian Church, recognizing Easter as the antitype 
of the Passover, retains some traces of this fort- 
night. The Fifth Sunday in Lent is just a fortnight 
before Easter. It is called Passion Sunday, be- 
cause the Epistle makes distinct mention of the 
shedding of Christ's blood, and of the purpose of 
His death, while the Gospel gives an account of 
that attempt of the Jews upon His life, Avhich 
may be looked upon as the commencement of 
His passion. Though hardly as seasonable as it 
might be, the present Collect is, nevertheless, a 
valuable one; and our Reformers have been skil- 
ful and felicitous in the translation of it. As it 
stands in Gregory's Sacramentary, and the IVIissal 
of Sarum, it runs thus: "We beseech thee, Al- 
mighty God, mercifully to look upon thii house- 
hold; that by the exercise of thy bounty it may 
be governed in body, and by thy watchful care 
jjreserved in mind. Through the Lord." 

It will be observed that for "household" or 
" family " the translators have substituted the 
word "people." And though people is a colder, 
less attractive word than household or fcmiHy, a 
plausible reason may be assigned for the altera- 
tion. The petition of the Collect is for govern- 



154 THE FIFTH SUNDAY IN LENT. 

ment and preservation. Now the words gov- 
ernment and preservation rather point to what 
a king does for his subjects than to what 
the head of a family does for its members, — 
they are pohtical rather than domestic words. 
It will be observed that the original Latin 
prayer spoke of God's government as apply- 
ing only to the body, and of His preserva- 
tion as applying only to the soul. It is very 
difficult fully to appreciate the distinction; and 
our Reformers have done wisely in obhterating 
it. Surely we need preservation or guardian- 
ship for the body as well as for the soul, and 
government or guidance for the soul as much as 
for the body. And so, having perhaps in view 
that passage of the Epistle to the Thessalonians, 
" The very God of peace sanctify you wholly; 
and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and 
body be preserved blameless unto the coming of 
our Lord Jesus Christ/' they have thrown to- 
gether the body and soul, as well as the peti- 
tions preferred for each one of them respec- 
tively, — "that by thy great goodness they may 
be governed and preserved evermore, both in 
body and soul." 

It is interesting to observe how faithfully the 
Prayer Book echoes the Bible in bringing the 
body into the sphere of religion, in recognizing 
its sanctification, and the function which it has to 
fulfil in the service of God. Consecrated to God in . 
Baptism as a temple of the Holy Ghost, the body 
is fed in the other and higher Sacrament with 



THE FIFTH SUNDAY IN LENT. 155 

the symbols of Christ's bod}" and blood, in token 
and anticipation of its resurrection, according to 
that word of the Saviour: "AVhoso eateth my 
jflesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal hfe; 
and I will raise him up at the last day." Hence, 
in the OflEice of the Holy Communion, w^e are 
taught to pray that we may so "eat the flesh of " 
God's " dear Son, Jesus Christ, and drink His 
blood, that our sinful bodies may be made clean 
by His body," and also to "offer and present 
unto " God " ourselves, our souls and bodies, to 
be a reasonable, holy, and living sacrifice unto " 
Him. And the body, though now in a state of 
humiliation by reason of sin, is not to be de- 
stroyed or annihilated by death, but to be raised 
in incorruption, in glory, in j)ower, and fashioned 
like unto Christ's glorious body. 

But we must not omit that httle but significant 
clause, "by thy bountiful goodness." It is im- 
possible, I think, to find a better translation of 
the Latin words "te largiente," — a translation at 
once so idiomatic, and yet which so truly seizes 
the spirit of the original. Our w^ord " God " is 
only a modified form of the word "good"; God 
is the good one — the largely, liberall}^, munifi- 
cently, bountifully good one. " God is love," 
saith the Scripture, that is, love is the foundation 
and essence of His character, — the first and tru- 
est concejDtion of Him; we are to think of Him 
as good, before we think of Him as wise and 
powerful. Even the heathen so thought of God 
in a measure, for the Romans bestowed upon 



156 THE FIFTH SUNDAY IN LENT. 

Jupiter, their supreme Deity, the grand title 
" Optimus Maximus," "Best and Greatest;" in 
commenting upon which Cicero observes that 
" we call him best (that is, most beneficent) be- 
fore we call him greatest, because the doing- 
good to all is a greater, or at least a more 
blessed, thing than the having great power and 
resources." If even the heathen conceived of 
goodness as God's noblest attribute, how much 
more reason have Christians to conceive thus of 
Him, who " so loved the world that He gave His 
only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in 
Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." 
And what an exquisite finishing touch have our 
Reformers given to the Deprecations and Sup- 
plications of the Litanj^ in adding the simple 
word " Good " to the bare and comparatively 
chilHng "Lord" of the original Latin Litany: 
" Spare us, good Lord; " " Good Lord, deliver 
us; " " "We beseech thee t-o hear us, good Lord " ! 



THE SUNDA V NEXT BEFORE EASTER. 157 



S^Jje Suntias next fiefore (Easter* 

Almigliii/ and everlctsiing God, who, of thy tender love 
towards mankind, hast sent thy Son, our Saviour 
Jesus Christ, to take tipon Him- our flesh, and to 
suffer death upon the cross, that all mankind should 
follow the example of His great humility; Mercifully 
grant that ive may both folio n' the example of His 
patience, and also he made partakers of His resur- 
rection; through the same Jesus CJirist our Lord. 
Amen. 

Omnipotens sempiterne Deus, qui humano generi ad 
imitandum humilitatis exemplum, Sahatorem nos- 
trum carnem sumere el crucem suhirefecisti: concede 
pi'opitius, ul et patientice ipsijis habere documenta 
et resurrect ionis consortia mereamur. Per eundem 
Dominun. (Gel. Sac, IMiss. Sar.) 

THIS Collect is derived ultimately from the 
Sacramentaiy of Gelasius, the date of which 
is the close of the fifth century. The grave, sweet 
notes of the prayer chime in with the cadence 
both of the Epistle and Gospel. It should be 
remarked that, while the Epistle has always been 
the same, the Gospel has been reduced to one- 
half of the length which it had before the Refor- 
mation. It consisted formerly of the twenty-sixth 
chaj)ter of St. Matthew, as well as of the bulk of 
the twenty-seventh. The Reformers judiciously 
separated the two chaj)ters, appointing the twenty- 
sixth to stand as the first Morning Lesson. It, 
no less than the twenty-seventh chapter, exhibits 
a great many traits of our Lord's patience. 



158 THE SUNDA V NEXT BEFORE EASTER. 

While the translators of the Collect have greatly 
improved upon the original by throwing a warm 
glow into the earlier part of it, they have certainly 
not rendered the latter part with accuracy. I 
suppose it must have struck every thoughtful 
reader of the English as singular that, after de- 
claring God's purpose in the Incarnation and 
Death of His Son to be "that all mankind shomld 
follow the example of" Christ's "^humility,'' we 
should then ask grace to follow the example, — 
not of His humility, but of his patience, — which, 
though a grace nearly connected with humility, 
is not exactly the same thing. The latter clause 
(following the example of Christ's patience) does 
not accurately represent the original, in which 
quite a distinct phrase is used from that which 
appears in the earlier clause. Here is a literal 
translation: "Almighty and everlasting God, who 
for the behoof of the human race, that they might 
have an example of humility to follow, madest 
our Saviour to take flesh and to undergo the 
cross, Mercifully grant that we may attain both to 
learn the lessons of His patience, and also to have 
fellowship in His resurrection; through the same 
Christ our Lord." The Gospel and Second Les- 
son exhibit frequent instances of our Lord's pa- 
tience, as the Epistle points to the great humil- 
ity of His condescension. It exhibits His patience 
under the agony. His patience towards Peter, 
towards Judas, towards the party which appre- 
hended Him, His patience under the spitting 
and buffeting of the High Priest's servants, and 



THE SUNDA V NEXT BEFORE EASTER. 159 

under the cruel mockery of His executioners, 
His patience before the High Priest, and before 
Pilate, under the revilings of the passers by, His 
patience finally under the sense of God's aban- 
donment. And accordingly the prayer of the 
original Collect, grounded on this Gospel, and 
indeed on all the Gosj)els of Holy Week, is that 
we may learn the lessons drawn from these Gospels. 

" Almighty and everlasting God, who, of thy 
tender love towards mankind." What a rich glow 
have our translators thrown into the Collect by 
the insertion of these few word^, " of thy tender 
love;" and I may add vfhat an important point 
of doctrine have they thus brought out in high 
relief? By means of these few words, the incar- 
nation and death of Christ, by which our re- 
demption were effected, are traced up to their 
earliest source in the love of the Almighty and 
everlasting God towards man, according to that 
word of Christ's own: "God so loved the world, 
that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoso- 
ever believeth in Him should not perish, but have 
everlasting life." 

" Hast sent thy Son, our Saviour Jesus Christ, 
to take upon Him our flesh, and to suffer death 
upon the cross." This is a closely-compressed 
abstract of the stages of our Blessed Lord's con- 
descension, as exhibited to us in the passage se- 
lected for the Epistle. The substance of what 
the Apostle says is given us, but in a short sum- 
mary, and a summary which omits the difficult 
phrases of Christ's pre-existence in the form of 



160 THE SUNDA Y NEXT BEFORE EASTER. 

God, of His not thinking it robbery to be equal 
with God, of His emptying Himself, and taking 
upon Him the form of a servant. Here Christ's 
Incarnation is expressed by the phrase " taking 
upon Him our flesh," — a phrase which most cer- 
tainly implies His Godhead, just as does the par- 
allel phrase in St. John's first Epistle, "Every 
spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come 
in the flesh." If Christ were human in His per- 
sonality^, it would be a truism to say that He has 
come in the flesh, or that He has taken flesh; for 
by the flesh is meant human nature. Christ's 
death was death in the most cruel and ignomini- 
ous form which death could assume, in order 
that sin, for which He died, might be shown to 
be an accursed thing and under God's ban of 
outlawry. Such is the force of the Apostle's words 
in the Epistle: "He humbled Himself, and be- 
came obedient unto death, emn the death of the 

C7^0SS." 

And now what lesson is to be learned from this 
marvellous condescension of the Saviour ? " That 
all mankind should follow the example of His great 
humility." Pra}'^ observe that this is the lesson 
which St. Paul is impressing, when he introduces, 
in order to emphasize his precept, the wonderful 
account of the stages of our Lord's humiliation. 
The immediately foregoing context of the Epistle 
is this: "Let nothing be done through strife or 
vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each es- 
teem other better than himself.-" 

" Mercifully grant that we may attain both to 



THE SUNDA V NEXT BEFORE EASTER. 161 

learn the lessons of His patience." It requires a 
moment's consideration to see why, humility hay- 
ing been specified in the former part of the Col- 
lect as the characteristic grace of our Lord's ca- 
reer, we should be here taught to pra}-^ that we 
may learn the lesson, not of a Christlike humility, 
but of a Christlike patience. The reason, I sup- 
pose, is to be sought in the relation which pa- 
tience bears to humility. They are both nearly 
allied graces; but humility is the root of patience; 
patience is the outcome and manifestation of hu- 
mihty, wherever humility is genuine. We may 
easily flatter ourselyes that we are humble when 
we are not so; and as to the humility of conde- 
scension, which was the form of humility exhibited 
by our Blessed Lord, there must be many Chris- 
tians who, from haying no sort of eminence from 
which to condescend, would haye little ojDpor- 
tunity of exhibiting it. But as to patience, there 
can be no room for self-deception; and op^^or- 
tunities for exercising it are afforded almost daily 
to all. Patience under the crosses, be they httle 
or great, which are laid upon us by God, pa- 
tience under the thwartings, contradictions, op- 
positions, which arise from our fellow-men, — who 
has not the opportunity vouchsafed him of exhib- 
iting one or more of these traits of character al- 
most daily? The petition that we may "learn 
the lessons of His patience " is only a briefer 
mode of saying, " that we may so learn of Him, 
who is meek and lowly in heart as to take His 
yoke upon us." 



162 THE SUNDA Y NEXT BEFORE EASTER. 

" And also to have fellowship in His resurrec- 
tion." This fellowship, it is impHed, we shall 
not and cannot have, unless we learn the lessons 
of His patience, and follow the example of it. St. 
Paul sought to know the fellowship of Christ's 
sufferings, and to be made conformable unto His 
death, as the only way open to him of attaining 
unto the resurrection of the dead. And quoting, 
apparently, certain maxims, which from their ex- 
ceeding importance had gained currency among 
the early Christians, he thus animates Timothy 
to endure: "It is a faithful saying; For if we be 
dead with Him, we shall also live with Him : if 
we suffer, we shall also reign with Him." And 
sweetly and comfortably does our Office for the 
Visitation of the Sick echo this maxim : " There 
should be no greater comfort to Christian per- 
sons, than to be made like unto Christ, by suffer- 
ing patiently adversities, troubles, and sicknesses. 
For He Himself went not up to joy, but first He 
suffered pain; He entered not into His glory be- 
fore He was crucified. So truly our way to eter- 
nal joy is to suffer here with Christ; and our 
door to enter into eternal life is gladly to die 
with Christ; that we may rise again from death, 
and dwell with Him in everlasting life." Only 
by " holding fast the lessons of His patience " 
can we have "fellowship in His resurrection." 



GOOD FRIDAY.— I. 163 



(ffiooti Jritiag*— I. 

AlmigliUj God, ine beseech thee graciously to behold this 
thy family, for lohich our Lord Jesus Christ was 
contented to be betrayed, and given tip into the hands 
of icicked men, and to suffer death upon the cross, 
ivho now liveth and reignelh with thee and the Holy 
Ghost, ever one God, tcorld without end. Amen. 

Respice, Domine, qucesumus, super hanc faniiiiam 
tuam, pro qua Dominus noster Jesus Christ us non 
dubitavit manibus tradi nocentium, et Cruets subire 
tormentum. Qui tecum vivit, etc. (Gkeg. Sac, 
Miss. Sak.) 

THE Collect for Good Friday in the Missal 
of Sarum ran as follows: — "O God, from 
whom the traitor Judas received the punishment 
of his crime, and the thief the reward of his con- 
fession; grant to us the benefit of thy propitiation " 
{i.e. the propitiation by thee provided), "that, 
as in [the course of] His passion our Lord Jesus 
Christ assigned to both these men the wages 
they had deserved, so He may remove from us 
the errors of our old life, and bestow upon us 
abundantly the grace of His resurrection; who 
liveth and reigneth with thee," etc. This was 
open to several objections. Our Reformers, there- 
fore, wisely decided to discard the old Collect used 
at the Communion on Good Friday, and adopt 
in its stead one which was used at Compline (or 
the closing service of the day) on Good Friday, 
and also on Maunday Thursday, and Avliich was 



164 GOOD FRIDAY. — /. 

also one of the jEinal prayers of the Mass on the 
the Wednesday before Easter. 

This Collect must be viewed in connection 
with those which follow it, if its significance is to 
be fully perceived. Our Lord Jesus Christ, on 
the eve of His Passion, and before He went forth 
into the garden of the Agony, offered that most 
solemn and thrilling prayer which is recorded in 
John xvii., in which He made Himself over by 
an act of self-consecration to death on behalf of 
His little flock (" for their sakes I sanctif}'' My- 
self "), and prayed that they might be kept after 
His departure, as He had kept them during His 
sojourn with them,' in God's name, and thus 
might be held together in a close unity, like 
that which subsists between the Father and the 
Son; "Holy Father, keep through" (it should be 
" in ") " thine own Name those whom thou hast 
given me, that they may be one, as w^e are." 
But in this prayer He also travelled on, beyond 
the little flock of His present disciples, to all 
those who should thereafter believe in Him, but 
w^ere at present lying in sin and error. Now, in 
these three magnificent Collects for Good Friday 
the Church copies the example of her Lord in 
praj^er, as nearly as the difference between her 
circumstances and His permits. She pleads His 
propitiatory passion and death, those sufferings 
to which He made Himself over for her sake. 
And first she pleads this death for herself, con- 
sidered as one flock, one household, united in 
one holy bond of faith and charity: "We, beseech 



GOOD FRIDAY. — /. 165 

thee graciously to behold this thy ' family ' " (the 
" this " pointing to the congregation then and 
there present, as a little miniature and represen- 
tative of the entire Church). — But though Chris- 
tians are one in Christ, yet how various are their 
stations, their positions, their duties and their 
occupations ! In the second Collect this variety 
of stations and duties is recognized; and we are 
taught to intercede not merely for the Church 
as being one body, but as a system, each part 
of which has its sei)arate function to perform: 
"Receive our supj)lications and prayers, which 
we offer before thee for all estates of men in thy 
holy Chui'ch, that every member of the same, in 
his vocation and ministr}^ may truly and godly 
serve thee; through our Lord and Saviour Jesus 
Christ." — But because Christ interceded for those 
who were not yet believers, and because, as we 
are instructed by His Evangelist, He in His death 
and passion is the propitiation not for our sins 
only, "but also for the sins of the whole world," 
the Church's intercession travels on to those who 
are at present living outside her pale; to Jews, 
who, while they acknowledge the Father, deny 
the Son, whose office it is to reveal the Father; 
to Turks, who, while they admit the Son to be 
a prophet, deny Him to be Divine; to Infidels, 
who know neither the only true God, nor Jesus 
Christ whom He hath sent; and to Heretics, 
whose case is, in a certain point of view, more 
miserable than that of any others, inasmuch as 
having once known and received the truth, they 



166 GOOD FRIDAY.— I. 

have perverted and corrupted it. Such is the 
beautiful and interesting connection of thought 
betv\reen these three Collects. 

"Almighty God, we beseech thee graciously to 
behold this thy family." Our Lord Himself was 
the first who likened His Church to a household, 
each member of which has his work assigned 
him by the master, one being set as a door- 
porter to watch for the rest, and one or more as 
stewards to bear rule, and to allot to the other 
members the provision needful for their wants. 
" Who then is a faithful and wise servant, whom 
his lord hath made ruler over hh household, to 
give them meat in due season ? " And St. Paul, 
taking up our Lord's image, speaks of "the 
household of faith." 

" For which our Lord Jesus Christ was con- 
tented to be betra^^ed;" — as if we would say, 
" Thy Son loved this family so dearly that He 
gave Himself up to a cruel death on its behalf. 
Shall not His love for it avail to procure the lift- 
ing up of the light of thy countenance upon it — 
the sunshine of thy smile and favor ? " Such is 
the plea here put forward. 

"Was contented." A more literal rendering 
of the Latin would be "did not hesitate." So 
little did He hesitate, that, " v/hen the time was 
come that He should be received up, He sted- 
fastly set His face to go to Jerusalem," display- 
ing an alacrity, St. Mark tells us, so unearthly, 
so divine, that it overpowered His disciples: 
"Jesus went before them; and" (as they knew 



i 



GOOD FRIDAY. — /. 1(J7 

He was throwing Himself into the jaws of the 
lion) "they were amazed; and as they followed, 
they were afraid." His heart was all aflame 
wdth zeal for God's glorj- and man's salvation, 
according to that word which the Psalmist puts 
by prophetic inspiration into His mouth: "Lo, I 
come, in the volume of the book it is written of 
me, that I should fulfil thy will, O my God: I 
am content to do it ; yea, thy laAv is within my 
heart." 

"Contented to be betrayed." The sting of 
ingratitude; this is the first ingredient in our 
Lord's cup of suffering, which is here rehearsed. 
How sharp it was, let us gather from His plaint 
in the Psalms: "Yea, mine own familiar friend, 
in whom I trusted, which did eat of my bread, 
hath lifted up his heel against me;" "it was not 
an enemy that reproached me; then I could have 
borne it: neither was it he that hated me that did 
magnify himself against me; then I would have 
hid myself from him: but it was thou, a man 
mine equal, my guide, and mine acquaintance. 
We took sweet council together, and w^alked 
unto the house of God in company." 

"And given up into the hands of wicked men." 
Perhaps " cruel men " would be the more exact 
rendering. Harmful men, — men who vented 
their spite and malignity upon Him. Christ 
came unto His own, the Jews, and His own 
received Him not; but surrendered or made 
Him over into the hands of ruthless Gentiles, 
who spat upon Him to indicate their contempt 



168 GOOD FRIDAY. — /. 

and aversion, and finally nailed Him to the cross 
of pain and agony. 

"And to suffer death upon the cross." The 
original Latin is, " to undergo the torment of the 
cross." To suffer death is a more significant 
phrase than "to undergo torment," because 
death was the original penalty of sin, and as 
Christ's sufferings were expiatory, endured by 
Him as " the second man," the second and bet- 
ter representative of our race. His death should 
always be expressly mentioned as the climax of 
the penalty. Yet the " undergoing torment " of 
the Latin Collect may usefully remind us of the 
frightful bodily and mental tortures which ac- 
companied the cross, of the agonies of Christ, the 
inflammation of His extremities, the burning thirst, 
the drawing away of human sym]3athizers when 
the Yirgin retired in the charge of St. John, and, 
far above all in bitterness, the hiding of the Fa- 
ther's countenance at the last, when the smile of 
His favor was most needed by the human soul 
of the Redeemer. 

It is a feature of the Collect, not to be over- 
looked, that, though it is a prayer for the dark- 
est day of the Christian year, it is yet terminated 
in the form usually employed at jubilant seasons, 
"Who now livetli and reigneth with thee and the 
Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end," 
thus reminding us of the passage in the Epistle 
to the Philippians, which links together the 
deepest humiliation of Christ with His highest 
exaltation, and points to the latter as the crown 



i 



GOOD FRIDAY. — //. 169 

and recompense of the former : " Being found in 
fashion as man, He humbled Himself, and be- 
came obedient unto death, even the death of the 
cross. Wherefore God also hath highly exalted 
Him, and given Him a name which is above ev- 
ery name: that at the name of Jesus every knee 
should bow, of things in heaven, and things in 
earth, and things under the earth; and that 
every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is 
Lord, to the glory of God the Father." 



ffiooti jFritiag.— II. 

Almighty and everlasting God, hy whose Spirit the 
whole body of the Church is governed and sanctified; 
Receive our supplications and prayers, which we offer 
before thee for all estates of men in iliy holy Church, 
thai every member of the same, in his vocation and 
ministry, may truly and godly serve thee; through 
our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen. 

Omnipotens semjnterne Deus, cujus Spirilu tcium corpus 
Ecclesice sanctificatur et regitur; exaudi nos pro uni- 
versis ordinibus supplicantes: ut gratice tuce mu- 
nei'e ab omnibus iibi gradibus fideliter serviatur. 
Per Dominum nostrum Jesum Christum Filium 
tuum, qui tecum vivit. In imitate ejusdem. (Gkl. 
Sac, Greg. Sac, Miss. Sab.) 

THIS Collect made its first ajDpearance in the 
Sacramentary of Pope Gelasius. It is found 
also in the later Sacramentary of Pope Gregory, 
who, in adopting it, added two words to it. The 
last clause in Gelasius' Sacramentarv had run 



170 GOOD FRIDAY. — //. 

thus: "That by the gift of thy grace faithful ser- 
vice may be done by all." Gregory altered this 
to, " that by the gift of thy grace faithful service 
may be done to thee by all orders [of men]." 
The prayer is not the Collect proper for Good 
Friday, which, for reasons assigned in the last 
Chapter, our Reformers dispensed with, but one 
of several solemn prayers appointed to be said 
after the Gospel on this most solemn day, and 
coming, both in the Sacramentaries, and in the 
Missal of Sarum, between a prayer for the Bishops 
and other orders of clergy, and a prayer for the 
emperor or king. The idea of this sequence of 
prayers seems to be, that Christians are viewed 
first in their ecclesiastical, and then in their po- 
litical relations, prayed for first as members of 
the Church, and next as members of the State. 

"Almighty and everlasting God, by whose 
Spirit the whole body of the Church is gov- 
erned and sanctified." The first Collect, also, 
was a prayer for the Church; but the Church 
was there viewed as summed up and represented 
in each particular congregation. But now we 
view the Church, not as represented by a single 
small section of it, but in its Catholic character, 
as spread throughout the world — "the whole 
body of the Church." Yet, though this body is 
so vast, one life pervades it all, even to the ex- 
tremities, and that is the life of the Spirit— "by 
whose Spirit the whole body of the Church is 
governed and sanctified." " Sanctified and gov- 
erned" is the order of the words in the Latin 



GOOD FRIDAY. — //. 171 

Collect; and perhaps this is better, except in 
rhythm and to the ear, than our order. For 
before the blessed Spirit can govern and guide 
us, He must sanctify, must dispose us to yield 
ourselves unto God as those that are alive from 
the dead, before we can yield our members (under 
His government) as instruments of righteousness 
unto God. 

" By whose Spirit the whole bod}' is governed." 
Observe that here, as in Holy Scripture, the bodj- 
of the Church and its animating spirit are spoken 
of as distinct, and also that onl}' one body of 
Christ is recognized, as there is but one Spirit 
which animates and rules the whole of it, " By 
one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, 
whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be 
bond or free;" "There is one bod}^, and one 
Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your 
calling." Some try to make out that the unity 
of Christians is simply spiritual, consists merely 
in the internal operations of the Holy Ghost upon 
the conscience, affections, and will. But this is 
the teaching neither of the Bible nor of the 
Prayer Book, which everywhere recognize an 
external visible organized society (or body), and 
a certain defined relation in which that body 
stands to the Holy Ghost, the relation being this, 
that He sanctifies and governs it. 

"Receive our sapphcations and prayers." In 
the original it is only " supplications." Very 
happily our Reformers have added "praj-ers," 
probably with the intention of reminding us of 



172 GOOD FRIDAY.— 11. 

the precept for Public Worship in I Tim. ii. 1: 
"I exhort, therefore, that, first of all, Hupplications, 
prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be 
made for all men." Without drawing anj^ too 
refined distinction between supplications, pray- 
ers, and intercessions, we may yet say that the 
word "prayers" is the most generic of the three 
words, denoting as it does every form of ap- 
proach to the throne of grace, and that " suppli- 
cations" and "intercessions" are more specific 
words, which denote urgency, and some special 
request made to God on a subject which we have 
much at heart. 

"Which we offer before thee." This phrase is 
the insertion of our Reformers, and a very happy 
and significant insertion it is. We are commem- 
orating the great Offering of offerings, — " the of- 
fering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all," 
through which, applied to our consciences, we 
are sanctified. This offering was made for all, — 
" not for our sins only, but also for the sins of the 
whole world," and on the basis of it, on the altar 
of atonement which Christ reared in His Cross, 
we present our offerings, one of the chief of them 
being "supplications, prayers, and intercessions 
for all men," supplications reaching as far as the 
sacrifice of Christ reaches, — to the whole race of 
man. 

"For all estates of men in thy holy Church." 
God's law in Grace, as in Nature, is unity in va- 
riety. We have glanced at the unity of the holy 
Church in the former Collect, — " this thy fam- 



GOOD FRIDAY.— II. 173 

ilv," — and in the former clause of this, — "the 
whole body of the Chui'ch." Now we proceed 
to consider how this unity opens out into va- 
riety, how vast a number of positions, stations, 
occupations, professions, trades, there are within 
the bosom of the holy Church, and how each of 
these has its own peculiar trials, responsibihties, 
difficulties, hindrances. And in the view of these 
trials we offer prayer in a truly catholic sj)ii'it for 
each and all of these '"estates," seeing that the 
Lord Jesus on Good Friday gave Himself as a 
ransom for all, and mediated between God and 
all men, 

" That every member of the same, in his voca- 
tion and ministry, may truly and godly serve 
thee." A man's vocation is his calling, his j)ni'- 
suit; and we are told in I Cor. vii. that every 
man, when he becomes a Christian, is to abide in 
the same calling (supposing it of course to be a 
lawful one) " wherein he was called." Any and 
ever}' calling which is sanctified by a godly mo- 
tive, and b}' the aim of pleasing God in it, and 
contributing something to the great scheme of 
His service, assumes the dignity of a " ministry." 
I say the work itself is ministerial; although I be- 
heve that the word "ministry," as here used, imjolies 
something else besides the mere devout perform- 
ance of secular duties. Added to the word " vo- 
cation," it reminds us usefully that no man is at 
liberty to give his whole time to his caUing, what- 
ever it be, that the Christian Ufe consists not 
merely in working for God in some of the many 



174 GOOD FRIDAY — //. 

departments of His service, but also in worship- 
ping God both in the closet and in the Church. 
Christian laymen, as well as clergymen, are part 
of the " holy priesthood," consecrated in Baptism 
and Confirmation to offer up spiritual sacrifices 
acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. And if the 
larger part of the day of most of us must neces- 
sarily be occupied with the "vocation," time must 
be secured for the "ministry" of prayer, and 
praise, and reading, if the vocation is to have 
God's blessing upon it — " Truly and godly serve 
thee." The first word, doubtless intended to ap- 
ply chiefly to the vocation, and the latter to the 
ministry. The service done in " the vocation " 
must be "true"; — in the original the word is 
" faithful." " True," — not hollow and hypocriti- 
ical, as is the case where we seek in our daily 
work only the praise of men; not mercenary, as 
where a man endeavors to serve only his own 
worldly ends in his work. And " faithful," — that 
is, conscientious, and punctually executed. And 
the service done in the " ministry " must be 
"godly"; we must set the living God before us 
in our prayers and praises, regard the minutes 
spent in devotion as real interviews with Him, 
and speak to Him earnestly in them, and then 
with all docility listen for His voice in the read- 
ing of His word. No " ministry," which we do 
not make an honest effort to rescue from formal- 
ity, can be "godly." 



GOOD FRIDAY.— III. 175 



ffiooti JFrttJag*— III. 

merciful God, who hast made all men, and haiest 
nothing that thou hast made, nor desirest the death of 
a sinner, but rather that he should he converted and, 
live; Have merci/ upon all Jews, Turks, Infidels, and 
Heretics, and take from them (dl ignorance, hardness 
of heart, and contempt of thy Word: and so fetch 
them home, blessed Lord, to tliy flock, that they may 
he saved among the remnant of the true Israelites, 
and be made one fold under one shepherd, Jesus 
Christ our Lord, who liveih and reigneth with 
thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, world loithout 
end. Amen. (a.d. 1549.) 

TWO or three exiDressions of the Collect be- 
fore us are evidently borrowed from those 
ancient sources, of which we have had occasion 
to say so much, the Sacramentaries of Gelasius 
and Gregory; but the greater part of it is the 
manufacture of Cranmer and his colleagues. But 
though there is much that is new in the phrase- 
ology, the line of thought is entirely ancient. In 
the Sacramentary of Gelasius, after the reading 
on Good Friday of the Passion of our Lord, in 
the 18th and 19th chaj)ters of St. John's Gos- 
pel, eighteen solemn prayers were directed to be 
said — two for the Universal Church; one for the 
Pope and the Bishop of the Diocese; one for 
Bishops in general; one for Bishops, Priests, and 
Deacons, and for the Clergy in minor orders; 
one for all estates of men (corresponding to 
our second Collect) ; one for the Emperor or King; 



176 GOOD FRIDAY. — ///. 

one for tlie empire or kingdom; two for the 
Catecliumens; one for the sick, for prisoners, 
travellers, and sailors; one for the afflicted and 
distressed; two for heretics and schismatics; two 
for the Jews; and two for the heathen. I need 
scarcely say that the Turks do not appear in 
this catalogue of persons interceded for by the 
Church, for the very simple reason that the Ot- 
toman empire was not founded till the very close 
of the thirteenth century, — nay, that the Otto- 
man religion did not come into existence till 
more than a century after the Gelasian Sac- 
ramentary; for Gelasius died in 496, and Mo- 
hammed did not announce himself as a prophet 
till 611. Obvious as this is, it is well to call 
attention to it, because the doing so leads us 
to observe the venerable antiquity of the sources 
whence most of our Church pra3^ers are derived. 

Before we run through this prayer clause by 
clause, let us endeavor to see the appropriateness 
to Good Friday of prayers for all conditions 
of men, not only within the Church, but also 
outside her pale. The key must be sought in 
that passage of St. John's Epistle: "He is the 
propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, 
but also for the sins of the whole world." 

On Good Friday the great propitiation was 
made for sins. The Son of God then suffered in 
that human nature, which He condescended to 
assume. But although He assumed human na- 
ture, yet He did not assume, as Nestorious erro- 
neously supposed, a human person; — what there 



GOOD FRIDAY. — ///. 177 

was in Him of personality was all divine. Hence 
He is not more allied to one human person than 
to another, but equally to all. " For this is good 
and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour; 
i{:ho will have all men to be saved, and to come unto 
the knowledge of the truth. For there is one 
God, and one mediator between God and men, 
the man Christ Jesus, icho gave Himself a ransom 
for all, to be testified in due time." Now the day 
on which He gave Himself a ransom for all was 
Good Friday. And therefore on Good Friday 
prayers for all are specially in place. — But, again, 
the Church imitates her Lord; He set for all time 
the example which she follows. When first be- 
neath the impact of the cruel nails His sacred 
Blood gushed forth as a propitiation for sins, in 
the very first moment of the Crucifixion, there 
burst forth from His lips a pra^^er for infidels 
and Jews: "Father," said He, "forgive them; 
for they know not what they do; " — forgive these 
Roman soldiers and their officers, who are " aliens 
from the commonwealth of Israel," and forgive 
also these Jews who have instigated the deed, at 
whose special and urgent request it is done. 
The intercession of the great Mediator can never 
be offered in vain. And but an hour or two after 
this prayer for infidels and Jews was offered, it 
received two striking answers in the conversion 
of a Jew and of an infidel. The penitent thief 
was a Jew; had he not been so, he could never 
have expostulated with his comrade on the in- 
operativeness of God's fear upon his heart, nor 



178 GOOD FRIDAY. — ///. 

would our Lord have spoken to liim of Paradise, 
of wliicli, as a lieatlien, lie could have never heard. 
And on the penitent thief God had mercy, taking 
from him in an instant of time " all ignorance, 
hardness of heart, and contempt of His Word.'' 
And the heathen centurion, under whose orders 
the execution was conducted, and who probably 
gave the word of command to drive in the nails, 
he too came under the power of the intercession, 
"Father, forgive them." "When the centurion, 
which stood over against Him," heard His jubi- 
lant cry of triumph, " It is finished ! " so different 
from the preceding cry of deep depression, " My 
God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me ? " con- 
viction was struck to his heart, which doubtless 
issued at Pentecost (if not previously) in conver- 
sion : " When the centurion . . . saw that He so 
cried out, and gave up the ghost, he said. Truly 
this man was the Son of God." 

But the appropriateness of these intercessions 
to the day of our Lord's Crucifixion rests not 
only on a Scriptural, but also on a moral ground. 
If the events of Good Friday, as recorded in the 
Gosj)els, do not move us to tenderness of heart, 
no events will. There were those, as we have 
seen, who, even on the day of the Crucifixion, and 
many more at Pentecost, when the Spirit of grace 
and of supplications was more fully shed abroad, 
looked upon Him whom they had pierced with 
compunction and contrition, and mourned for 
Him as one mourneth for his only son. If this 
contrition is reproduced in us by the glance of 



GOOD FRIDAY.— III. 179 

faith, it will bring with it, as one of its elements, 
tenderness to others. The sense of Christ's love 
to ourselves, while it wrings out tears for our 
sin, will engender love to other sinners, — even to 
those who are farthest off from God and from us. 
And it is only in the exercise of the love so en- 
gendered that we shall be able effectively to plead 
for them, and to ask even for the most perverse, 
and persecuting, and aj^parently irreclaimable, 
that " all ignorance, hardness of heart, and con- 
tempt of God's Word may be taken from them," 
and " that they may be fetched home to His 
flock, and saved among the remnant of the true 
Israelites." 

" O merciful God." The invocation is, as usual, 
suitable to the argument of the prayer. We are 
about to pray for the extension of God's pardon- 
ing mercy and sanctifying grace to those who 
are outside the pale of His Covenant. The ap- 
propriate attribute, then, by which to address 
Him is clearly "merciful." 

" Who hast made all men." The couphng of 
this fact with the attribute of mercy finds its 
warrant in the statement of the Psalmist: " The 
Lord is good to all : and His tender mercies are 
over all His works." 

"And hatest nothing that thou hast made." 
Like the well-known passage of the Burial Ser- 
vice, " In the midst of life we are in death," these 
words strongly resemble a text of Holy Scripture, 
and probably have often been mistaken for one. 
But they are not found in the Bible; and the 



180 GOOD FRIDAY.~IIL 

nearest approacli to tliem in point of sentiment, 
which is found there, is the assertion of St. Paul 
to Timothy, upon which the precept of inter- 
ceding- for all men is based, that God "will have 
all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowl- 
edge of the truth." The phrase did not origi- 
nate with our Reformers; they have borrowed it 
from one of the Collects appointed for Ash Wed- 
nesday in the Missal of Sarum. But, though it 
did not originate with them, they seem to have 
been struck by it, and to have made good use of 
it; for not only have they introduced it into the 
Ash Wednesday Collect, but here also, and in 
the second of the three final prayers of the Com- 
mination Service. As it occurs, then, three times 
in the Book of Common Prayer, it would seem 
to be specially recommended to our attention. 
W"e derive encouragement in our j)i'ayer by ob- 
serving the way in which He proceeds in the 
distribution of natural blessings. He who mak- 
etli His sun to shine on the evil and on the good, 
and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust, 
will, we may well hope, cause the dews of grace 
to distil upon and soften the hard and proud 
heart, and the Sun of righteousness to shine 
upon the ignorant mind, and to illumine and 
kindle it into fervor. 

" Nor desirest the death of a sinner, but rather 
that he should be converted and live." These 
words are transj)lanted into the Collect from 
the Book of Ezekiel: "As I live, saitli the Lord 
God, I have no pleasure in the death of the 



GOOD FRIDAY.— III. 181 

wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way 
and live: turn ye, turn ye from your evil waj's; 
for why will ye die, O house of Israel ? " But 
let it be observed that the expression " be con- 
verted " does not occur in the two Ash Wednes- 
da}^ praj'ers, those being for Christians who have 
dishonored their Christian profession, not for 
persons beyond the pale of the Christian Cov- 
enant, who need to be brought within that pale. 

"Have mercy uj^on all Jews," those who accept 
Revelation uj) to a certain point, admitting the 
Old Testament, but rejecting the New; — " Turks," 
those who accept Revelation to a further j^oint, 
acknowledging Jesus as a real Prophet, but pre- 
tending to have received a revelation which is an 
advance upon and supersedes His — (the princi- 
ple, therefore, of this petition for the Turks or 
Mohammedans vrill embrace Mormons, and all 
who claim to have received in these latter days 
a revelation improving uj)on the Gospel) — " In- 
fidels," those who reject all true Revelation, and 
worship gods of man's fabrication, and believe 
in cunningly-devised fables like the Yedas of 
Indian heathenism, — " and Heretics," who, w^hile 
holding the true Revelation, have depraved and 
corrupted and perverted it by their glosses and 
expositions, — a complete enumeration of religious 
errorists. 

" And take from them all ignorance, hardness 
of heart, and contempt of Thy Word." These 
are the roots of unbelief. " Ignorance " is in the 
mind or intellectual faculty. ''Hardness of heart " 



182 GOOD FRIDAY. — ///. 

is evidently in the heart; it is moral insensibility, 
such as those must labor under who can look 
upon an agonizing, crucified and dying Saviour 
(the great object of Good Friday contemplation) 
without compunction. " Contempt of Thy "Word. " 
This contempt resides, or at least is rooted, in 
the will. It comes from the will's attempting to 
strengthen itself in an opposition, which it more 
than suspects to be opposition to the truth, by 
assuming a scornful and defiant attitude. The 
Jews not only crucified Christ; but by flouting 
and jeering, mocking and spitting upon Him, tried 
to persuade themselves that they despised, Him. 
/' And so fetch them home, blessed Lord, to 
thy flock, that they may be saved." The fetch- 
ing home is in order to the salvation, and is what 
must take place now, before the end of the Dis- 
pensation arrives. Observe that it is fetching 
home to the flock, not to the fold. The flock of 
Christ, though one, is, under the present econ- 
omy, necessarily contained in different folds, as 
He Himself intimated, ^v^hen He said, " Other 
sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them 
also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; 
and there shall be one fold" (a mistranslation; 
the word is not the same as that w^hich has just 
occurred; it signifies, not ^ fold, but di, flock), — 
"there shall be one flock, and one shepherd," 
— one flock contained in many folds, — our Lord 
is speaking not of the ultimate salvation, but of 
what is to be brought about in time, by the con- 
version of unbehevers and misbelievers. 



GOOD FRIDAY.— III. 183 

" That they may be saved among the remnant 
of the true Israehtes." "They are not all Israel, 
which are of Israel." "He is not a Jew, which is 
one outwardly; neither is that circumcision, which 
is outward in the flesh: but he is a Jew, which is 
one inwardly; and cii'cumcision is that of the 
heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose 
praise is not of men, but of God." The word 
" remnant " may remind us that true Israehtes, 
whether under the Christian or Jewish Dispen- 
sation, are hid a remnant; that many baptized (as 
weU as circumcised) persons, who are by profes- 
sion God's people, are not really His in the inner 
man of the heart, and will not be owned by 
Christ at the last day. 

" And be made one fold under one shej)herd, 
Jesus Christ our Lord." This is not to be con- 
nected with the words of our Lord ah'eady 
quoted, " There shall be one fold, and one shep- 
herd; " for there the right translation is, " one 
flock and one shepherd." Rather the mind is 
here thrown forward to a time when Christians 
shall be not one flock only (as they are at pres- 
ent, in yirtue of their haying " one hoj)e of their 
calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one 
God and Father of all "), but onefold also; when 
all barriers between one communion and another, 
whether arising from the sin of man, or merely 
from the exigency of the circumstances in which 
he is at present placed, shall be broken down; 
when, as is foretold in the Book of Reyelation, 
" there shall be no more sea," no more obstruc- 



184 EASTER EVEN. 

tion of intercourse between the different sections 
of Christ's flock, but the Church shall be " one 
body," visibly and manifestly, grouped around 
the " glorious high throne " in the everlasting- 
Sanctuary. 



Grant, Lord, that as we are bajytized into the death 
of thy blessed Son our Saviour Jesus Christ, so by 
co7itinual mortifying our corrupt affections we may 
be buried with Him; and that through the grave, and 
gate of death, ice may pass to our joyful resurrec- 
tion; for His merits, who died, and was buried, and 
rose again for us, thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord. 
Amen. (a.d. 1661.) 

OUR Prayer Book is not only a treasury of 
devotion, but also an interesting historical 
monument. It recalls those early times of the 
Church when, amid the breaking up of the West- 
ern Roman Empire, the three great Sacramen- 
taries were compiled; it recalls the meek and 
learned Cranmer, and his labors in drawing up 
a Service Book in the vernacular for the English 
Church; it recalls Bishop Cosin, and the revision 
which he and his committee so successfully ac- 
complished, and which was the great result of 
the Savoy Conference. The Collect before us has 
another great historical memory clinging to it, 
besides that of Cosin. Singularly enough the 
Divines of the Reformation provided no Collect 
for Easter Even. This is the more to be won- 



EASTER EVEN. 185 

dered at, because to the Epistle and Gospel for 
Easter Even they paid particular attention, giv- 
ing us as the Ej^istle St. Peter's notice of Christ's 
preaching to the spirits in jDrison, and as the 
Grospel the account of the burial and the sealing 
of the stone, — passages much more appropriate 
to the day than the Ej^istle and Gos23el which 
are found in the Sarum Missal. Why they re- 
jected the Sarum Collect, it is not easy to say; 
for it is entu'ely free from everything objection- 
able in point of doctrine, and contains, as oui* 
present Collect does, a pointed allusion to the 
Sacrament of Baptism, which in the earty Church 
it was customary to administer on Easter Even. 
But, whatever may have been their reasons for a 
step so new and unprecedented as that of fur- 
nishing an EjDistle and Gospel without a Collect, 
thus matters stood for a period of eighty-eight 
years from the date of the First Prayer Book of 
Edward YI. The expiration of that period found 
the unhapj)y Charles I. upon the throne of this 
realm. He and Archbishop Laud, who had been 
raised to the Primacy in 1633, wished to intro- 
duce the English Book of Common Prayer into 
Scotland. But the Scottish Bishops pleading 
that the jealousies of the Scotch would set them 
against the Book, unless it received certain alter- 
ations, which might entitle it to be regarded as a 
new work, a committee was formed for the pur- 
pose of revising the English Liturgy, and adapt- 
ing it to the Scotch Church. Among the ]Dro- 
posed alterations was the provision of a Collect 



186 EASTER EVEN. 

for Easter Even; and, as Laud admitted that by 
the King's express injunction he had assisted in 
preparing the new Service Book, and as both his 
character and his position would naturally give 
him a leading part in any enterprise which he 
might join, we may believe that in this Collect we 
have some trace of his hand, not altogether in- 
expert in forms of devotion. The Collect, how- 
ever, as it stands in our o^n Prayer Book, is not 
worded as its writer worded it. Bishop Cosin in 
1661 rewrote the Scotch Collect for the English 
Prayer Book, still retaining its main features, but 
pruning its redundancies, and reducing it more 
to the usual compass of a Collect. With such 
historical memories as these is the Collect for 
Easter Even charged. And yet, looked at in 
itself, it is as scriptural, as devout, as practical 
as any prayer has need to be. The following is 
the original draft of it in the Laudian Book 
of Common Prayer, which it is interesting to 
compare with the more terse version given by 
Cosin to the English Church: — " O most gracious 
God, look upon us in mercy, and grant that as 
we are baptized into the death of thy Son our 
Saviour Jesus Christ; so by our true and hearty 
repentance all our sins may be buried with Him, 
and we not fear the grave; that as Christ was 
raised up from the dead by the glory of thee, O 
Eather, so we also may walk in newness of life, 
but our sins never be able to rise up in judgment 
against us; and that for the merit of Jesus Christ, 
that died, was buried, and rose again for us. 



EASTER EVEN. 187 

x4.men." The meaning of both the Scotch and 
Eno'hsh Collects is the same, but the mode in 
which it is exjDressed is different. In the English 
Collect the petition is that we ourselves may be 
buried with Christ (" so b}^ continual mortifying 
our corrupt affections ive, etc., etc.") in the Scotch, 
it is that our sins may be buried by our true and 
hearty repentance. The prayer is, that we may 
not only put this corrupt nature to death, but 
bury it out of sight, and so bury it that it may 
not rise up again, and that its ghost, so to speak, 
may not haunt us in the hour of death and in the 
day of judgment. We are told that " the sting 
of death," — that which gives death its power of 
hurting — "is sin." And here we pray that our 
sins — the members of sin's body or of our cor- 
rupt nature — may be buried with Christ, buried 
in His grave, — jiut away and laid aside forever, 
so as never to rise in judgment against us. And 
this can only be by our true and hearty repent- 
ance of them, a repentance which puts away not 
only the acts of sin, but also all sympathies witli 
it, all tenderness for it, all relentings over it, if so 
be some of its indulgences and pleasures might 
be spared to us. 

" Grant, O Lord, that as we are baptized." 
This Collect is not one of those which have come 
down to us from the primitive ages of the Church. 
But by this mention of Baptism it carries us back 
to the primitive ag^s. For Easter Even was one 
of the solemn times at which it was customary 
in the earlv Church to administer the Sacrament 



188 EASTER EVEN, 

of Baptism. Catechumens, who had been in course 
of preparation for it during the forty days of Lent, 
were then brought to the font, and after being 
plunged in the layer of regeneration, and bap- 
tized into the name of the Father and of the Son 
and of the Holy Ghost, were clad in the white 
garment called the chrisom, as a symbol of their 
having put on Christ (" As many of you as have 
been baptized into Christ have put on Christ"), 
and being now spiritually clothed in His right- 
eousness. These white garments they continued 
to wear until the first Sunday after Easter, when 
they were laid up in the vestry of the church as 
a memento of their baptismal vow and privileges, 
to be produced against them in case they be- 
haved themselves in a manner unworthy of their 
Christian profession. — But why was Easter Even 
chosen as one of the stated times for the admin- 
istration of Baptism ? Because the day follows 
upon Good Friday, when we commemorate our 
Lord's death, and immediately precedes Easter 
Day, when we commemorate His resurrection, 
and because the inward spiritual grace of bap- 
tism, as our Catechism teaches, is a death and 
a resurrection, "a death unto sin, and a new 
birth unto righteousness." And there was in' 
the primitive method of administering Baptism 
a symbolism of death and resurrection, which is 
now, by the modern method of merely sprinkling 
the water upon the face of the baptized, very 
much obscured, if not entirely obliterated. The 
whole body was plunged under the water for 



EASTER EVEN. 189 

two or three moments, during which, as we can- 
not breathe in the water, animation was suspended 
— this w^as baj)tismal death — and was then lifted 
up again into the air and sunhght, so that the 
process of respiration was resumed, — this was 
baptismal resurrection. 

" Grant, O Lord, that as w^e are baptized into 
the death of thy blessed Son." What is the mean- 
ing of our being baptized into the death of Christ, 
— a phrase borrowed by the writer of the Collect 
from St. Paul: "Know ye not, that so many of 
us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were bap- 
tized into His death ? " " To baj)tize into " means 
to admit by baptism into a societ}' or fellowship, 
to be "baptized into Christ," or "into the body 
of Christ," or " into the name of Jesus," is to be 
received by baptism into communion with Him, 
and into the fellowship of His Church. To be 
"baptized into the death of Christ," therefore, 
must mean to be admitted into communion with 
a dying and atoning Saviour, not merely with 
Christ as a teacher come from God, but with Christ 
lifted up on the tree of the cross, with Christ 
bleeding, agonizing, pouring out His soul unto 
death as the penalty of man's transgression. And 
w'e cannot be admitted into communion with an 
atonino- Christ without comino- in for our share 
of the benefits of His atonement, which are the 
washing away of past sins, and the renewing 
grace of the Holy Ghost. 

But the Collect, when it speaks of Baptism, 
must refer to its administration to infants, this 



190 EASTER EVEN. 

being the usual practice iu long Christianized 
countries like our own, and cases of adult Bap- 
tism being in such countries very rare. Do in- 
fants, then, receive in Baptism that washing away 
of sins, and that renewal of their nature, w^iich 
are the fruits of Christ's death ? They have no 
actual sin to be forgiven. But there is in them 
the "fault and corruption of nature," attaching 
to every man "'that naturally is engendered of 
the offspring of Adam," and which goes under 
the name of original sin. The guilt of original 
sin is in their Baptism washed away, and a germ 
of divine grace, corresponding to the germ of 
natural depravity, is sown in their moral nature, 
which, if fostered by Christian education, will 
counteract the evil that is in them as soon as 
their faculties are developed. 

Then we proceed to follow into after life those 
who have been as infants admitted by Baptism 
into communion with a dying Christ, and made 
partakers of the benefits of His death. " So by 
continual mortifying our corrupt affections, we 
may be buried with Him." " The infection ot 
nature," says our Article, "doth remain, yea in 
them that are regenerated." They carry about 
with them still the body of sin, that is, the old 
corrupt nature, with its various actings of lust, 
pride, temper, sloth, envy, and so forth. This 
"body of sin," corrupt nature, or old self (all 
different phrases for the same thing), received 
sentence of death in our Baptism, when also 
power to execute the sentence was communicated 



EASTER EVEN. 191 

to us. Now, the best evidence that the body 
of sin is dead within us is that we are doing 
our best to bury it. If the old seK, the body 
of sin, is allowed to remain with us unburied, 
it will breed a moral pestilence, which will in- 
fect our own souls and those of others. We 
must address ourselves to bury it then, — and 
how ? " By continual mortifying oui' corrupt 
affections." The body of sin must be hidden 
away from God's eyes, from our neighbors' eyes, 
nay, from our own. When disquieting thoughts 
of our own guilt arise in our hearts, we must put 
them away with the thought that Christ died to 
purchase our pardon, and that in Him we too 
died, and have paid the penalty of sin. As good 
Bishop Andrewes prays-c " Grant me grace to 
worship the Lord Jesus, for His cross, in cruci- 
fying the first motions of the flesh; for His death, 
in mortifying the flesh; for His burial, in bury- 
ing evil thoughts by good works." 

'* And that through the grave, and gate of 
death, we may pass to our joyful resurrection." 
The point to be remarked here is that the con- 
necting link between death and resurrection is 
burial, — "the grave and gate of death." It was 
so with our Lord. He did not rise from the 
cross, after He had given up the ghost thereon; 
He must first pass thi'ough the sepulchre, and 
lie there within death's jurisdiction for two nights. 
I say, within death's jurisdiction; for the words 
" gate of death " have no doubt reference to the 
Eastern custom of administering justice in tlie 



192 EASTER DAY. 

city gates. Our Lord could not have risen again 
without having been first formally consigned by 
burial to the power of death. Sentence of burial, 
as well as of execution, was passed upon the old 
self in Baptism, and this sentence must be exe- 
cuted by the putting away of sin in all its act- 
ings, if the force of those words is to be realized 
within us, "Buried with Him in baptism." 



Almighty God, who through ihiiie only-begotten Son Je- 
sus Christ hast overcome death, and opened unto us 
the gate of everlasting life; We humbly beseech thee, 
that, as by thy special grace preventing us thou dost 
put into our minds good desires, so by thy continual 
help ive may bring the same to good effect; through 
Jesus Christ our Lord, icho liveth and reigneth -with 
thee and the Holy Ghost, ever one God, world with- 
out end. Amen. 

Deus, qui hodierna die per Unigenitum tuum eternitatis 
nobis adiium devicta morie reserasti: vota nostra quce 
proeveniendo aspiras, eiiam adjuvando prosequere. 
Per eundem. (Gbeg. Sac, Miss. Sae.)- 

THE first half of our Easter Collect is found 
in the Sacramentary of Gelasius. But 
only the first half. Gregory, thinking probably 
that more point could be given to the petition 
of the Collect in connection with the doctrine of 
grace, which had been assaulted by the Pelagian 
heres}^, rewrote the latter half of the prayer. 
The petition of Gelasius's Collect had simply 



EASTER DAY. 193 

asked that " through the renewing of the Sph'it 
we may rise from the death of the soul." That 
which Gregory substituted, and of which our 
Reformers have given us a free and ver}' no- 
ble translation, runs as follows: "Those desires 
which, by preventing us [with thy grace] thou 
dost make us to breathe [towards heaven], fur- 
ther, also, we beseech thee, by thy help." It will 
be admitted on all hands, that this is, as Canon 
Bright calls it, "a terse and vigorous summary 
of the doctrine of grace." 

"Almighty God, who through thiiie only-be- 
gotten Son Jesus Christ." There is a twofold 
propriety in calling our Lord, God's " onl^'-be- 
gotten Son " in connection with the high festival 
of Easter. "Jesus Christ," says St. Paul, "was 
declared to be the Son of God with power, by 
the resurrection from the dead." His resurrec- 
tion was the 'proof and evidence of His Sonship. 
But, more than this. His resurrection was itself a 
generation, even as His birth had been, — an en- 
gendering Him anew from the dark womb of the 
grave into the hght and hfe of God's counte- 
nance. Thenceforth He is, as He is st^'led both 
by St. Paul and St. John, "the first-born, or 
first-begotten, from the dead." The term "first- 
born " 23oints, it is true, to the fact that His peo- 
ple will be made partakers of resurrection with 
Him, — will be drawn after Him in the train of 
His triumph; yet it is He, and He alone, who 
hath won the triumph, and set o^^en the gate of 
everlasting Hfe, to give them access. 



194 EASTER DAY. 

"Hast overcome death." The task of overcom- 
ing death demanded the might of God's only-be- 
gotten Son. No man before Jesus Christ over- 
came death, or could have overcome it. Enoch 
and Elijah eluded the conflict with death; but to 
elude a conflict with an adversary is a different 
thing from meeting and conquering him. The 
Shunamite's son, Jairus's daughter, and others, 
were miraculously resuscitated; but as, after a 
few more years of life, death claimed them a sec- 
ond time, they did not overcome him, but he 
them. But " Christ, being raised from the dead, 
dieth no more; death hath no more dominion 
over Him;" nay, rather He hath dominion over 
death. 

" And opened unto us the gate of everlasting 
life." It is in this clause that the coherence be- 
tween the former part of the Collect and its pe- 
tition is to be sought. As a token that this gate 
was closed against man when he fell, he was 
driven forth from the happy garden, and de- 
barred from access to the tree of life which 
would have immortalized him, by Cherubims 
with " a flaming sword that turned every way," 
meet symbol of the law of God, which is sharp, 
subtle, and s]3iritual, penetrating to the thoughts 
and intents of the heart, and pointing to every 
quarter of the compass of human duty. But the 
Son of God, having, in the nature which belongs 
to all of us in common, endured and exhausted 
the penalty thereof, not only broke an entrance 
for Himself into the heavenly Paradise, but, after 



EASTER DAY. 195 

doing- this, turned and set the door of it ^Yide 
open for His joeople to follow, bringing life and 
immortality to light. And in reference to this 
glorious prospect, we say to Him, as often as we 
sincf the TeDeum, "When thou hadst overcome the 
sharpness of death: thou didst open the Kingdom 
of Heaven to all believers" 

"We humbly beseech thee, that, as by thy 
special grace preventing us thou dost put into 
our minds good desires.*' Our Lord has done 
more for us, who invoke God's name in this Col- 
lect, than merely set open the gate of everlasting 
life. That He has done for all mankind, heathen 
as well as Christian, inasmuch as He obeyed and 
suffered in the nature common to all. But to us 
He has given "special" and distinguishing grace. 
He ordained that we should be born in a Chris- 
tian country, that we should be brought to Bap- 
tism in infancy. In all this He " prevented " us, 
that is, went before and antici23ated any effort on 
our part. Good desires, holy wishes, pure asj^i- 
rations. Lonoino's to be better men and women 

O O 

than we are. Longings to feel God's smile shin- 
ing in upon the soul, and to sun ourselves in its 
warmth. Longings to be more like Christ, more 
unselfish and more pure. These longings come 
from God's " apecial grace preventing us." They 
constitute the strength which Christ gave us, 
when He opened the gate of everlasting life, and 
set us full in front of it. 

" So by thy continual help we ma}' bring the 
same to good effect." "Continual" is an inser- 



196 EASTER DAY. 

tion of the translators, and a most significant one. 
The first impulse to enter in at the open gate of 
everlasting life came purely and simply from 
G-od's Spirit— from " grace preventing us. " God's 
'"continual help," His help at every stage of the 
process of sanctification, is as much demanded as 
the original imj)ulse which He gives. He must 
work concurrently with us, as well as antece- 
dently to us, not only " preventing us, that we 
may have a good will " ; but also "working with 
us when we have that good will " (Article X.) 

"We may bring the same to good effect." 
For we may not, we niust not, rest in " good de- 
sires." Balaam would have entered in at the 
gate of everlasting life, if a devout aspiration 
had sufficed ; for he said with great sincerity and 
fervor: "Let me die the death of the righteous, 
and let my last end be like his!" "Good de- 
sires," says Francis of Sales, "are the flowers of 
the heart." A show of blossom is a beautiful 
thing; but a show of blossom is not fruit; the 
blossom falls off, the fruit abides. There is a 
Jacob's ladder set up on earth through the me- 
diation of the Redeemer, the top of which reaches 
to heaven; and the Lord, standing above it at 
the opened gate of everlasting life, says to the 
soul of each disciple, " Come up hither." 



FIRST SUNDAY AFTER EASTER. 197 



EJje JFirst $untiag after lEastcr* 

Almighty Father, who hast given thine only Son to die 
for our sins, and to rise again for our justification; 
Gi'ant us so to put away the leaven of malice and 
wickedness, that we may always serve thee in pure- 
ness of living and truth; through the merits (f the 
same thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. (a.d. 
1549.) 

THIS Collect is due to our Reformers. As 
the Prayer Book was originally drafted 
in 1549, it was aj^pointed for the second Com- 
munion on Easter Day, as also for Easter Tues- 
day. Bishop Cosin at the last Review transferred 
it from Easter Tuesday", as the Collect of which 
it stood in the Black Letter Prayer Book of 1636, 
to the First Sunday after Easter. It falls in very 
aptly with the associations of this Sunday. For 
on this Sunday the Services of the primitive 
Church had reference to the cii'cumstances and 
wants of those who had received Baptism on 
Easter Even. This was the Sunday when these 
neojDhytes laid aside and deposited in the churches 
the white garments, which they had received in 
connection with their Baptism, and had worn 
during the eight subsequent days. Such persons 
were, of course, to be admonished that they should 
keep their bajDtismal vow. Hence the old Introit, 
which began Quad modo geniti infantes, "As new- 
born babes, [desire the sincere milk of the word "], 
— a cu'cumstance which led to the Sunday bein^ 



198 FIRST SUNDAY AFTER EASTER. 

called ''Quasi modo Sunday.*' Hence, too, the re- 
minder in the Epistle, that those who are indeed 
born of Grod overcome the world, and its refer- 
ence to the Spirit and the water that bear record 
on the earth, and to the Three that bear record 
in heaven, into the name of which Three we are 
baptized. And hence, perhaps, the mention in 
the Gospel of Christ's grant to His Church of the 
power of absolution, the first of all absolutions 
being that conferred in Baptism. 

" Almighty Father," a form of invocation which 
occurs nowhere else among the Collects; but a very 
consolatory, and a beautifullj^ appropriate one. 
First, the Collect is an Easter Collect; and, since it 
is by the resurrection of Jesus Christ that God 
hath begotten us again unto a lively hope, the 
calling Him " Father " is here specially apposite. 
Next, the Sunday is, as we have seen, specialty 
associated in the practice of the primitive Church 
with Baptism. In Baptism " I was made a mem- 
ber of Christ, the child of God." — And the title 
" Almighty " is equally appropriate with that of 
"Father." For Christ's resurrection, which we 
are still celebrating, is spoken of as the most 
stupendous achievement of Divine power, — " the 
exceeding greatness of His power to usward who 
beheve, according to the working of His mighty 
power, which He lorought in Christ, luhen He raised 
Him from the dead." 

"Who hast given thine only Son to die for 
our sins, and to rise again for our justification;" 
— a reference to St. Paul's words in Rom. iv. 24, 



FIRST SUNDAY AFTER EASTER. 190 

25, " Jesus our Lord . . . who was delivered " 
(surrendered to sufferings and death by His 
Father, by Himself, and subordinately by the 
Jews and Judas Iscariot) " for our offences, and 
was raised again for our justific^it.ion." The pas- 
sage has given occasion to lengthy exj)ositions 
from commentators; but is not really difficult. 
Justification is a forensic term; and means the 
sentence of a tribunal in a prisoner's favor — a 
sentence of acquittal. Our sins made Christ's 
death (He being our Representative, and taking 
our sins uj)on Him) a necessity; He died for 
our sins, bare them in His own body on the 
tree. And our acquittal equally made His Res- 
urrection a necessity. For it was by His Resur- 
rection that Grod the Father declared Himself 
satisfied with Christ's atoning work, and gave 
sentence of acquittal upon mankind as viewed 
in Christ. Without the Resurrection of Christ, 
there would have been no evidence of God's for- 
giveness of man's sins, or of his acceptance of 
Christ's sacrifice. And the ver}" first boon which 
comes to man in the train of Christ's Resurrec- 
tion is God's absolution. For when, in the Gos- 
pel of the day, Christ for the first time after His 
Resurrection meets His assembled Apostles, He 
comes with " Peace'be unto you," and " Whoseso- 
ever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them." 
" Grant us so to put away the leaven of malice 
and wickedness." The allusion to the putting away 
the old leaven would be vividly significant to a 
Jew, and come home to him with a force which 



200 FIRST SUNDAY AFTER EASTER. 

we can hardly appreciate. In the seven da3^s 
which followed the Feast of the Passover, the 
Jews held themselves bound to keep absolutely 
clear of every kind of leaven, and, in order to 
effect a thorough riddance of it, they first made 
Si, purging out of it, cleansing every j)art of their 
household stuff to which it might by possibility 
adhere; secondly, a searching out, looking with 
wax candles into all the crevices of their houses, 
even into the mouse holes; thirdly, a burning out, 
which was done by putting all the leaven into 
a little heap and setting fire to it; and lastly, a 
cursing out, the recital of a formula in which they 
prayed for the scattering and destruction of any 
small particle which might perhaps have es- 
caped notice — a sufficiently striking image of 
the thoroughness with which God would have 
us put away sin, and exterminate it root and 
branch. — But sin is here termed "malice and 
wickedness," the first word probably denoting 
uncharitable sentiments towards our neighbor, 
the second, wicked deeds in the widest sense of 
the term — against God, our neighbors, and our- 
selves. Not but that the word "malice" also 
sometimes denotes sins against God; for it is used 
of the sin . of Simon Magus, which was an un- 
hallowed trafficking in sacred things, and is there 
translated "wickedness." We shall not be mis- 
taken if we take the two words together as de- 
noting every form of moral and spiritual evil. 

" That we may always serve thee in pureness 
of living and truth." The Latin translation, made 



FIRST SUNDAY AFTER EASTER. 201 

by order of Queen Elizabeth in 1560, renders 
this "in purity of faith and hfe." It is evident 
that the translator took " living " and " truth " 
to be under the same bracket, that is, understood 
the word " pureness '"' to refer to the word " truth " 
as well as to the word "living," "pureness of liv- 
ing and pureness of truth," the first denoting 
moral soundness, and the second doctrinal sound- 
ness. And a most wholesome lesson it is for us, 
and one most necessary for these, and, indeed, 
for all times, that we should regard as leaven 
not merely sins but also false doctrine. Our 
Lord Himself sjDoke of false doctrine as leaven 
when He bade His disciples beware of leaven, 
meaning, however, not the leaven of bread, but 
the doctrine of the Pharisees and Sadducees. 
And of this we may be quite sure, that error in 
princij^le will not long work in the Church, with- 
out first corrupting the Church's worship, and 
then engendering laxity and worldliness of practice. 
In conclusion, how instructive is it that, when 
we have been seeking from God absolutely spotless 
purity, both in doctrme and life, we should sol- 
emnly remind ourselves that this purit}^ even 
if we could entirely attain to it, could not be the 
ground of our acceptance — that that can only be 
" through the merits of the same thy Son, Jesus 
Christ, our Lord ! " 



202 SECOND SUNDAY AFTER EASTER. 



Ejje Secontr Suutrag after Easter. 

Ahnigliiy God, who hast given thine only Son to he unto 
us both a sacrifice for sin, and also an ensainple of 
godly life; Give us grace thai we may always most 
tliankfidly receive that His inestimable benefit, and 
also daily endeavor ourselves to follow the blessed 
steps of His most holy life; through the same Jesus 
Christ our Lord. Amen. (a.d. 1549.) 

THE Collect wliicli is found in the Sarum 
Missal for tlie Second Sunday after Eas- 
ter: "O God, who by thy Son's humbling Him- 
self hast raised up a fallen world; Grant unto thy 
faithful people perpetual joy, that they whom 
thou hast snatched from the dangers of perpet- 
ual death, may be brought by thee to the frui- 
tion of eternal joys. Through the same," — is a 
petition for Christian joy, founded on the exal- 
tation of our Lord Jesus Christ after He had 
humbled Himself, and become obedient unto 
death, even the death of the cross. It rings with 
the echoes of Easter joy, and very beautiful is the 
way in which the Christian's present joy in Christ's 
salvation is spoken of as ultimately expanding 
into, and merging in, what our form of Daily Ab- 
solution calls God's '■'eternal joy," — the joy to 
which the Saviour's voice will invite, when He 
says, "Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord." 

But beautiful and edifying as the Sarum Col- 
lect is, we think that our Reformers substituted 



SECOND SUNDAY AFTER EASTER. 203 

for it a composition of much more solid excel- 
lence. This j)rayer is framed according to the 
best type of Collects. It is remarkable for bal- 
ance, balance not only in the style, but in the 
doctrine which it expresses. With two masterly 
touches it summarizes the whole benefit of Re- 
demption, as consisting in the provision of a sin- 
offering and of a perfect example. And not less 
happily it summarizes the duty of a Christian, as 
consisting, first, in reception, and, secondly, in 
imitation. The richness and fulness of thought 
compressed into the seven or eight lines of this 
brief pra^'er is really remarkable. Perhaps we 
should not err in saying that it embraces more 
matter than any other Collect. And it is built 
upon, and stands in living relation to, the Epistle 
and Gospel for the day, which certainly cannot 
be said of the mediaeval Collect. 

"Almighty God, who hast given thine only 
Son." it will be observed that the opening of 
this Collect is nearly the same as that of the pre- 
ceding Sunday. And the Christmas Collect be- 
gins in the same way, with this difference, that 
there the gift of Christ is said to be for sympathy 
and community of lot, here for expiation and imi- 
tation: "Almighty God, who hast given us Thy 
only-begotten Son to take our nature upon Him, 
and as at this time to be born." Observe that 
God is said to give Christ to man, both on the 
occasion of His birth, and on the occasion of His 
resurrection, — His resurrection being, indeed, His 
second birth. In the Christ of Christmas we have 



204 SECOND SUNDAY AFTER EASTER. 

the gift of Divine sympathy; in the Christ of 
Easter the gift of Divine succor. 

"Thine only Son." In the original draft of 
the Collect, and down to the edition of the Prayer 
Book in 1596, the words were " Thy lioly Son," — 
no doubt a printer's blunder, which, however, had 
an existence of nearly half a century. — It enhances 
the love of Grod infinitely, that He who was given 
for sympathy and succor was not His Son, as we 
are, by adoption, but by nature, — a part of Him- 
self, bound up with His own eternal existence in 
the Triune Grodhead. 

" To be unto us both a sacrifice for sin." This 
is the great spiritual benefit conferred upon us by 
Christ. " Christ also suffered for us," it is said 
in the Epistle ; and again, in a later verse of it, 
"Who His own self bare our sins in His own 
body on the tree." But let us not suppose that 
the sin-offering made by Christ exhausts the sac- 
rificial aspects of the Saviour's work. In a word, 
the ensamjole of godly life was in a certain im- 
portant aspect of it " a sacrifice," no less than the 
death of Christ. 

"And also an ensample of godly life." Here, 
however, the Lord's example is regarded in the 
aspect of a moral benefit to us, just as His death 
had been regarded in the preceding clause as a 
spiritual benefit. Cranmer was led to put the 
two together, the sacrifice for sin and the en- 
sample because the text in the Epistle does so. 
"Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an ex- 
ample, that je should follow His steps." The 



SECOND SUNDAY AFTER EASTER. 205 

particular feature of Christ's example which we 
are recommended to follow is not brou.ght out in 
the Collect, but is seen at once when we look at 
the context of the passage in the Epistle. It is, 
perhaj^s, a feature which presents more difficulty 
than any other to the imitator, — ^that of bearing 
patiently indignities and rough usage, which have 
not been deserved, or which are even the requital 
of services. " Which all was your Divine Mas- 
ter's portion," says the Apostle; "and yet He 
endured it all v/ith patience and sweetness," 
"who, when He was reviled, reviled not again; 
when He suffered, He threatened not; but com- 
mitted Himself to Him that judgeth righteously." 

" Give us grace that we may always most thank- 
fully receive that His inestimable benefit." In 
these words we pray in effect for faith in Christ's 
sacrifice for sin, the faith whereby the sacrifice 
may be made available to us. The great doc- 
trine taught in this clause is that faith is recep- 
tion, according to that word of the Evangelist's, 
"As many as received Him, to them gave He 
power to become the sons of God, even to them 
that believe on His name." To believe on Christ's 
name is exactly equivalent to receiving Him. 
And this reception of Him and " His inestimable 
benefit " there must be, before there can be, and 
in order that there may be, any sincere "en- 
deavor to follow the blessed steps of His most 
holy life." 

"And also daily endeavor ourselves" (a reflex- 
ive verb, "to endeavor oneself," now no longer 



206 SECOND SUNDAY AFTER EASTER. 

in use, and therefore not to be read, as some 
clergy do read it, with an emphasis upon our- 
selves, as if it were intended to express some ob- 
hgation upon us to copy Christ's hfe) " to foUow 
the blessed steps of His most holy -life." The 
general meaning is, to imitate Christ's life. The 
phrase "following the steps of His most holy 
life" has reference to the Eastern custom (differ- 
ent from our own) of the shepherd going before 
the sheep with his crook in his hand, and the 
sheep following him, planting their feet upon his 
foot-tracks, as our Lord says, " When He putteth 
forth His own sheep. He goeth before them, and 
the sheep foUow Him: for they know His voice." 
Do we recognize His voice in Providence, in His 
Word, in the depths of our consciences? Have 
we felt that we personally and individually, and 
not merely in the mass, are addressed by Him, 
— ^that we are known and called " by name " ? 
And are we following Him, or endeavoring to 
do so, stud^dng how we may set our feet upon 
the tracks which He has left behind Him aU 
along the sands of human life ? 



THIRD SUNDAY AFTER EASTER. 207 



Ef)e E|)trti $untiag after 12astei\ 

Ahniglity God, icho shoicest to them thai are in error the 
light of thy truth, to the intent that they may return 
into the way of righteousness; Grant unto all those 
who are admitted into the fellowship of ChrisCs Re- 
ligion, thai they vnay avoid those things that are con- 
trary to their prof ession, and follow all such things 
as are agreeable to the same; through our Lord Jesus 
Christ. Amen. 

Deus, qui erraniibus, ut in viam possinl redirejustitice, 
veritatis tucB lumen ostendis: da cunctis qui Chris- 
tiana prof essione censentur, el ilia respuere quce hide 
inimica sunt nomini, et ea quce sunt apAa sectari. 
Per Dominum. (Miss. Sar. ; and see Gel. Sac. 
[Mm\ i. 301], and Gbeg. Sac. [Menard p. 89].) 

THIS Collect is of great antiquity. It may 
be traced up to the earliest of the Sacra- 
mentaries, that of Leo the Great. Gelasius left 
it untouched; but Gregory added a single word 
to it, which deyelops the meaning rather more 
fully. As it stands in Leo's Sacramentary, the 
words are, " to the intent that they may return 
into the way." Gregory inserted the words "of 
righteousness," to indicate clearly what way was 
meant. This yery ancient prayer places us in 
imagination in the midst of a primitiye state of 
things, which has long* since passed away. In 
endeayoring, to understand the Collect, we are 
to imagine that just preyiously to the Easter Fes- 
tiyal we had seen a large group of catechumens 
brought to the font and there solemnl}'- " ad- 



208 THIRD SUNDAY AFTER EASTER. 

mitted" by Baptism "into the fellowship of 
Christ's Keligion," and then clothed in "fine 
linen " robes, " white and clean/' in which robes 
they appeared in public during the ensuing week, 
and which were afterwards kept as evidence against 
them, in case of their doing anything unworthy 
of their Christian profession. And the prayer, 
offered for them when these white robes had 
been discontinued for a fortnight, and the first 
impressions of their regeneration by water and 
the Spirit were beginning to lose their freshness, 
was that they mio-ht do nothino- hereafter which 
those robes should seem to reprove, and that 
their lives might be of a piece with the color 
of the robes, holy, harmless, undefiled, — a daily 
dying unto sin, and living unto righteousness. 

" Ahnighty Grod, who showest to them that are 
in error the light of thy truth, to the intent that 
they may return into the way of righteousness." 
It should be clearly understood that the " error " 
here is not that of Christians untrue to their pro- 
fession, but of the unevangelized world, or of 
those who, having received the faith, have apos- 
tatized from it, — the speculative error of avowed 
unbelief or misbelief, combined, as it so often is, 
with the practical error of gross vice and immor- 
ality. Unless this is heeded, the petition of the 
Collect will not seem to hang together with its 
opening clause. The imagery of the clause is 
drawn from the circumstances of a belated trav- 
eller, overtaken by night as he is making his way 
over a common, where there are morasses and 



THIRD SUNDAY AFTER EASTER. 209 

pitfalls, and many tracks crossing one another, 
and only the faint light of a few stars above. 
Such an one needs' the sunlight to show him 
where the right path lies, — the path to the city 
where he dwells. " The light of truth " might 
be supposed to be merely a speculative light, 
merely the showing people on the jDart of God 
what they should believe; but the end of Rev- 
elation is practical not speculative; the truth 
which God " shows," is a truth which bears ujDon 
and influences man's conduct and eternal destiny: 
it shines upon him for the jDurpose of guiding 
him into the narrow " way of righteousness," of 
obedience, of holiness, of sanctification. — But how, 
it may be asked, can a converted Jew or Mahom- 
etan or Pagan be said to '^return into the way 
of righteousness ? " Was he in it before he was 
converted? Can a man be said to "return" to 
a wa}^, from which he has never strayed ? The 
answer is, that in every man born into the world 
there is not only a moral sense and a religious 
instinct, which are a real witness for God in the 
natural heart, but also that to every man a revela- 
tion is made of God's eternal power and Godhead, 
by means of the works of nature, and that St. 
Paul recognizes the fact that certain of the hea- 
then, w^ith only this measure of divine assistance, 
did "by nature the things contained in the law." 
Since then, the heathen have a certain law within 
them, and a certain revelation from without, it 
may properly be said of them when, after violat- 
ing this law, and refusing to be guided b}' this 



210 THIRD SUNDAY AFTER EASTER. 

revelation, tliej are brought by the better reve- 
lation of the Gospel to acknowledge their error 
and come out of it, that they "■relurn into the 
way of righteousness." 

" Grant unto all those who are admitted into 
the fellowship of Christ's Beligion." The trans- 
lators have imported a new idea into the Collect 
with the word "fellowship." The literal transla- 
tion of the Latin of this clause is, " Grant unto 
aU those who are enrolled as Christians by pro- 
fession," or, as the same idea is phrased in the 
" Praj^er for all Conditions of Men," " all who 
profess and call themselves Christians." "Ad- 
mission into fellowship " brings with it a new 
idea, foreign to the point of the Collect, but very 
valuable and ver^^ edifying. The Christian Church, 
into which we are admitted by Baptism, is " the 
body of Christ," every member of which is knit 
together in living union with every other mem- 
ber. To use the language of the Apostles' Creed, 
the Church is the Communion of Saints, in which 
saints separated by long tracts of time and space, 
nay and by death, have a real and hving inter- 
course with one another, are moved by one Spirit, 
animated by one hope, serve one Lord, confess 
one faith, look Vi^ to one God and Eather of aU, 
who is above all, and through all, and in them 
all. They have fellowship, too, with the angels ; 
for the heavenly Jerusalem, into which their 
Baptism has brought them, comprises, as the 
Epistle to the Hebrews teaches us, " an innumer- 
able compan}^ of angels." And, rising higher 



THIRD SUNDAY AFTER EASTER. 211 

still, we say that "truly their fellowship is with 
the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ," that 
being engrafted into Christ, they " are members 
of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones," and 
that. He being one wdth His Father in the unity 
of the Godhead, and being also by His indwell- 
ing Spirit the fountain to them of spiritual life, 
they are even made partakers of the divine na- 
ture. Thus the circle, into Avhicli they are ad- 
mitted at Baptism, embraces God, Christ, holy 
angels, and the spirits of ^'ust men made perfect, 
as well as saints on earth who are absent from 
them in the flesh, and such as have lived before, 
and v/ill live after, them. And it is interesting to 
observe that this mention of admission into Chris- 
tian fellowship was introduced into the old Col- 
lect by the same divines who inserted words to 
the same effect in the Baptismal Office. The 
signing with the cross indeed was a usual cere- 
mony at Baptism, and directions for it are found 
in many ancient rituals. But the words, with 
which the signature of the cross is administered 
among ourselves, were new, and made their first 
appearance in the Second Prayer Book of Ed- 
ward YI., A.D. 1552; — "We receive this child into 
the congregation of Christ's flock. " Hitherto there 
had been no recognition in the Baptismal Office 
of the baptized being brought by Baptism into 
fellowship with the whole body of the faithful. 

" That they may avoid those things that are 
contrar}^ to their profession," literally, "that they 
may reject with loathing those things that are 



212 THIRD SUNDAY AFTER EASTER. 

contrary to this name," — the name of Christian. 
We are to treat things contrary to our Christian 
profession, as the Lord says to the Laodicean 
Church that He will treat the lukewarm; — " So 
then, because thou art lukewarm, and neither 
cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth." 
It is a feature of the Christian character, not 
merely to avoid evil, but to loathe it. "■Ahlior 
that which is evil," says the Apostle. And one 
of the features of the wicked man, as por- 
trayed by the Psalmist^ is that " he ahhorreth not 
evil." Now, as the fellowship of Christ's Religion 
has been mentioned just before, and as we here 
ask grace for those admitted to this fellowship to 
"avoid those things that are contrary to their 
profession," we may well understand the sin 
of schism as being one of the many contrary 
things. "From all false doctrine, heresy, and 
schism, Good Lord, deliver us." — An observation 
may profitably be made on the original of this 
clause, "contrary" — not to their profession, but 
— " to this name," — " contrary to this name" " The 
disciples were called Christians first in Antioch." 
It is probable that this was a name not assumed 
by themselves, but given them by the heathen, 
because Ave do not find that the sacred writers 
use this name in addressing, or speaking of, 
their brethren. But the name, though perhaps 
originally given as a reproach, was accepted with 
joy and j)i'ide by those to whom it was given, as 
indicating their connection with Him who left us 
an example that we should follow His steps. 



THIRD SUNDAY AFTER EASTER. 213 

And as " He did no sin, neither was guile found 
in His mouth," they were reminded by it, when- 
ever it was hurled against them as a taunt, that 
this was one of the mottoes inscribed on God's . 
seal, wherewith they had been sealed in their 
Baptism: "Let ever}^ one that nameth the name of 
Christ depart from iniquity." 

" And follow all such things as are agreeable 
to the same." The Baptismal vow is negative in its 
first branch: "First, that I should renounce the 
devil and all his works, the jDomj^s and vanity 
of this wicked world, and all the sinful lusts of 
the flesh." But only in its first branch. The two 
other sections of the vow are positive, that we 
should " beheve all the Articles of the Christian 
Faith," and, in the strength of that faith, should 
"keep God's holy will and commandments, and 
walk in the same all the days of our life." 

But now let us turn and review this petition 
summarily. What a large one it is! how im- 
mensely comprehensive ? What a moral revo- 
lution would be brought about in the society 
all around us, if- God were to grant to all the 
baptized to avoid those things that are contrarj^ 
to their profession, and follow all such things as 
are agreeable to the same ! This is in fact asking 
that men should become angels, and earth hea- 
ven. Such a prayer will never be fully answered. 
Christ and His ajoostles do not lead us to ex- 
pect that it will. Tares will grow up side by 
side with the good seed in the harvest field of 
the Church, even to the time of the final harvest, 



214 THIRD SUNDAY AFTER EASTER. 

when the angel reapers shall gather up the tares, 
and sever them once for all from the wheat. But 
God's perjnission of evil, God's prediction of evil, 
is no rule for our prayers. It may be allowed to 
subsist, and its subsistence maybe clearly foretold, 
but we are to pray against it and strive against it, 
both in ourselves and in the society around us, 
none the less for its allowed and predicted con- 
tinuance. The rule for our prayers is the Divine 
prayer, which the Lord has put into our mouth 
as a model, whereon to frame our petitions. And 
this model teaches us to pray without reservation 
or modification that God's name may be hal- 
lowed, and His kingdom come, and His will be 
done, as in heaven so also upon the earth. And 
the more fervent are the Church's prayers, and 
the more sincere her efforts towards this glorious 
end, the more nearty will she approximate to- 
wards it. 



FOURTH SUNDAY AFTER EASTER. 215 



Efje jFourtI} Suittiajj after ISaster* 

Almiglity God, who alone canst order the unruly wills 
and affections of sinful men; Grant unto thy people, 
that they may love the thing which thou commandest, 
and desire that which thou dost promise; that so, among 
the sundry and manifold changes of the world, our 
hearts may surely there he fixed, where true joys are to 
be found; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. 

Deus, qui fidelium mentes unius e-fficis voluntatis; da 
populis iuis id amare quod proecipis, id desiderare 
quod promittis; id inter mundanas varietates ibi 
nostra fi>xa sint corda uhi vera sunt gaudia. Per 
Dominmn. (Gkl. Sac, ^Iiss. Sae.) [The first 
clause altered in 1661.] 

IN all perfect specimens of the Collect form of 
prayer, the doctrine recited, or the fact re- 
hearsed, immediately after the invocation, is made 
the basis or groundwork of the petition. The pe- 
tition is built upon the doctrine, as a house upon 
its foundation. In the present instance, the old 
foundation of the prayer has been removed, and 
a new one substituted, while the superstructure 
remains exactly what it was. This alteration, 
rather a hazardous one to venture upon, was 
made at the last review in 1661. Hitherto the 
first clause of the Collect had run thus: "Al- 
mighty God, who dost make the minds of all 
faithful men to be of one will," and this was the 
form in which the prayer came down to the or- 
iginal translators from the Sacramentary of Gel- 
asius thi'ough the Missal of Sarum. There is a 



216 FOURTH SUNDAY AFTER EASTER. 

real and profound connection between this clause 
and the petition. The thought that couples the 
two is this. Unity of mind and heart among 
Christians is to be obtained, not by any uniform- 
ity of discipline and worship, but by an action of 
the Holy Spirit upon the wills and affections of 
all, leading them all to love one thing, — what 
God commands, — and to desire one thing, — that 
which He promises, — and thus drawing the hearts 
of all in the same direction. 

" Almighty God, who alone canst order the un- 
ruly wills and affections." How does God order 
(that is, control and govern) the Avills of men? 
This is a point on which it behoves us to be 
clear thinkers, lest we fall into dangerous error. 
Of course He may do so by overruling what they 
choose to do, however wicked it may be, and 
however much done in defiance of HimseK, to 
His own ends. He may make the act of the Jews 
in crucifying Christ instrumental in the salvation 
of the world. But in such instances God orders 
rather the event than the will which gives birth 
to the event. And it is clear from the petition of 
the Collect that this is not what is iwincipally in- 
tended. It is a power of controlling or modifying 
the human will itself, and not merely of controlling 
or modifying its effects, which is here referred to. 
Then, how does God order the unruly will from 
within, and bring it into subjection unto Himself, 
or, in other words, into conformity with His own 
will ? Not by mechanical compulsion, inasmuch as 
men are moral agents. If it be not by mechanical, 



FOURTH SUNDAY AFTER EASTER. 217 

is it by moral, compulsion ? A moral compulsion 
is not a winning, though it may be rightly called 
an ordering, of the will. There can be no winning 
of the will, unless the will moves cheerfully, and 
freely, and lovingly towards the thing which is 
willed. He xvina it, by sending a strong influence 
upon the affections of desire, hope, and love, and 
stirring them up by His Holy Sj)U'it. He gives 
us a relish for spiritual, as distinct from earthly, 
pleasures, and kindles in us an aspiration after 
the crown of glory. When the loves and the de- 
sires, the affections and the hopes are set right, 
then the will moves spontaneously in the same 
du'ection, and the needle of the heart is true to 
the heavenly pole. For the affections are the 
motive powers which set the will in operation. — 
Here we see the vital connection between the 
opening clause of the Collect, as it now stands, 
and the petition built upon it. 

" Grant unto thy people, that they may love 
the thing which thou commandest," or, in other 
words, "that their wills may be won unto thy 
precepts,"' which cannot be, so long as they are 
merely brought to execute Thy commandments 
without loving them. They must be brought to 
perceive that these commandments are holy, just, 
and good, and are absolutely necessary to secure 
the happiness of moral creatures, and to obe}' 
them under this view of them. To comply with 
the precept, while feehng it to be a painful and 
irksome restraint, is a mere Balaam's obedience, 
which will avail nothing. 



218 FOURTH SUNDAY AFTER EASTER. 

"And desire that whicli thou dost promise," 
or, in other words, " Grant that their affections, 
which regulate their wills, may be set upon the 
hopes which God holds out in another world, 
the society of saints and angels, and the ravishing 
sight of the King in His beauty, of Christ as He 
is." This clause is very necessary to the full de- 
velopment of the idea. For, while it is true that 
the Christian finds, even during this life, peace 
and pleasantness in wisdom's ways, and experi- 
ences an inward satisfaction in keeping the com- 
mandments of God, he is stiU an expectant; while 
his " conversation is " at present " in heaven," he 
looks "for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Clirist, 
who shall change " his " vile body "; and this hope 
is the very polestar of his mind. And a most 
searching question it is, to ask ourselves whether 
our desires are in such a state at present that we 
are able to relish spiritual joys. Are there no 
carnally-minded Christians, to whom, because 
they have no taste for spiritaal pleasures, hea- 
ven would be no heaven if they were placed 
there, who keenly appreciate the distinctions 
which the world has to offer, and the luxuries 
which money is the means of procuring, but 
have no heart for those joys which will abide 
and grow more vivid, when the lust and the 
fashion of this world have for ever passed away. 

"That so, among the sundry and manifold 
changes of the world " — " sundry," of various 
sorts; "manifold," many in number. 

Finally do not omit to observe the beautiful 



FIFTH SUNDA V AFTER EASTER. 219 

appropriateness of this clause to tlie Christian 
season for which the Collect is appointed. We 
are drawing near the Ascension Day, and feel 
that we are drawing near to it. We shall soon 
be called upon to pray that we may (in a spirit- 
ual sense) accompan}' our Lord in His journey 
to the realms above; that "like as we do believe" 
Him " to have ascended into the heavens, so we 
may also in heart and mind thither ascend, and 
with Him continually dwell." Here, then, is a 
first foretaste of the Ascension Collect. 



C{}e JFiftl} Suntiag after ISaster. 

Lord, from whom all good things do come; Gi^ant to 
us thy humble servants, thai by tliy holy inspiration 
we may think those things thai are good, and by thy 
merciful guiding may perform the same; through our 
Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. 

Deus, a quo cuncta bona procedunt, largire supplicibus 
tuis, id cogitemus, te inspirante, quoe recta sunt, et te 
gubernante eademfaciamus. Per Dominum. (Gel. 
Sac, Miss. Sae.) 

THIS Collect may be traced up through the 
Missal of Sarum to the Sacramentary of 
Gelasius. The only deviations from the original 
made by the translators in 1549 are — first, the 
addition of two adjectives, God's "inspiration" 
being called " holy," and His " guiding " " merci- 
ful." If these epithets cannot be said to add much 
to the sense of the Collect, they at least do some- 



220 FIFTH SUNDAY AFTER EASTER. 

thing for its sound. Great and commendable 
pains were taken by the compilers of our Prayer 
Book to make the prayers rhythmical to the ear, 
under the view, possibly, that rhythm is not 
merely an ornament of style, but also an as- 
sistance to the memory. Besides these additions, 
the translators substituted the word " good " for 
"right" in the petition of the Collect. The Latin 
has, " Grant that by thy inspiration we may think 
those things that are righV The English is, " that 
by thy holy inspiration we ma}^ think those things 
that are good" " Good " has an advantage over 
right in this respect, that it establishes an in- 
stantaneous connection between the petition of 
the Collect and the doctrine that " all good things 
come from God," on which it is based. But, on 
the other hand, there is some forfeiture of idea 
in the alteration. " Good " is a much more com- 
prehensive term than "^ right." Things morally 
"good" are "right." But the word "good" ap- 
plies as well to God's natural blessings, health, 
strength, food, raiment, success, as to His spirit- 
ual blessings, the grace to discern what is His 
will, and the power to do it. And there is every 
reason to think that natural blessings, though 
not as high in the scale of God's gifts as spirit- 
ual, were specially in the contemplation of the' 
original framers of the prayer. 

" O Lord, from whom all good things do come." 
The J'ifth Sunday after Easter is sometimes called 
Rogation Sunday, as being the commencement 
of the week in which the Rogation days fall, and 



FIFTH SUNDAY AFTER EASTER. 221 

which is characterized by them. The Rogation 
days (or days of asking) are said to have been 
instituted by Mamertus, Bishop of Vienne in 
France about the middle of the fifth century. 
They were instituted, in view of certain calamities, 
earthquake and fire, which had occurred in that 
district, and a recurrence of which was to be 
deprecated by litanies, or solemn supplications 
to God, said or sung in procession. But inde- 
pendently of this local reason for the institution, 
the Fifth Sunday after Easter had, probably be- 
fore the time of Mamertus, been considered a 
suitable season, as falling in the full burst of 
spring, for praising God for the produce of the 
earth, and imjDloring Him to preserve it to man's 
use. In the Reformed Church it was thought 
v/ell to preserve these Rogation Days. Accord- 
ingly a homily, in four parts, was appointed for 
this week, one part for each of the three Roga- 
tion Days, and a fourth to be read in the course 
of the perambulation w^hich was made round the 
bounds of parishes during this week, and which 
served to keep up the memory of the bounds, 
and so to prevent territorial disputes. These 
perambulations may be regarded as a relic of 
the ancient litanies of Mamertus, which were to 
be sung in procession. They are the only pro- 
cessions, besides those in the Marriage and Bur- 
ial Services, which have been retained by the 
Reformed Church. The subject of the homily, 
as given in its heading, is " That all good things 
Cometh from God." The first part speaks of nat- 



222 FIFTH SUNDAY AF7ER EASTER. 

ural "good things"; the second of the "good 
things" of fortune and circumstance; the third 
of spiritual "good things," as coming from God; 
while the fourth part, which was to be delivered 
on the day of perambulation, distinctly recog- 
nizes the fact that the principal object of the 
assembling together is "to laud and thank Al- 
mighty God for His great benefits, by beholding 
the fields replenished with all manner of fruit, 
and to make our humble suits in prayers to His 
fatherly providence, to conserve the same fruits 
in sending us seasonable weather." 

" Grant to us, thy humble servants, that by 
thy holy inspiration we may think those things 
that are good." There is an undercurrent of 
reference here, quite missed by those who do 
not bear in mind the ancient practice of asking 
at this season of the year for a plentiful harvest 
in the autumn. The thinking of right thoughts, 
the entertaining of holy desires, the formation of 
good counsels or resolutions, these things are the 
spring produce of the moral soil, the "tender 
blade " put forth by God's working in the heart. 
But the right thought has yet to develope itself 
into performance, the holy desire and good 
counsel have to ripen into the just work, accord- 
ing to that word of exhortation in reference to 
almsdeeds, " Now therefore perform the doing 
of it; that as there was a readiness to will, so 
there may be a performance also out of that 
which ye have." There must be a moral har- 
vest, as well as the first appearance of vegetation 



FIFTH SUNDAY AFTER EASTER. 223 

iu the soil of the heart. Therefore we go on to 
pray, " that whatever in thy holy word they shall 
profitably learn, the}' ma}' in deed fulfil the same." 
We must not j^ass awa}' from this clause with- 
out observing on the word "inspiration,'' which 
is prayed for here, as also yi that noble Collect 
which stands at the beginning of the Communion 
Service. There is, or rather there was, an in- 
spiration which is a gift, a supernatural endow- 
ment of the Holy Spii'it, just as, in the infancy 
of the Christian Church, there was also a faith, 
which was a gift, a full persuasion on the mind 
of a believer that he could work a certain mir- 
acle. This inspu'ation exists no more, or does 
not exist in a miraculous form, though its natural 
basis is perhaps to be found in what is called 
genius. But there is also an inspu'ation, needed 
nowadays, and granted nowadays as much as 
ever, the inspiration which is a grace, that in- 
breathing of the blessed Spirit which is the 
soui'ce of every right thought, and which cleanses 
the icwng thoughts, so as to qualify the sovd for 
the perfect love and worthy magnification of 
God. 

"And by thy merciful guiding may perform 
the same." There are in every moral action two 
things to be considered, the design and the exe- 
cution. A right action, therefore may be com- 
pared to a work of art. It is not enough that 
the painter or sculptor should conceive the idea 
of it; he must know also how to throw the idea 
on the canvas or the marble; when he sets to 



224 THE ASCENSION DAY. 

work, he must guide his hands with dexterity^ 
We need " guidance " from God, when we come 
to put a right thought into execution, as well as 
"inspiration" from God, in order that we may 
conceive a right thought. 



CJje ascension IBag> 

Grant, we beseech thee, Almighty God, thai like as we 
do believe thy only-begoiLen Son our Lord Jesus Christ 
to have ascended into the heavens; so we may also in 
heart and mind thither ascend, and with Him cdn- 
tinually dwell, who liveth and relgneth -with thee and 
the Holy Ghost, one God, world without end. Amen. 

Concede, qucesumus, omnipotens Deus, ut qui hodierna 
die Unigenituvi tuum redemptorem nostrum ad coelos 
ascendisse credimus, ipsi quoque menie in coelestibus 
hahitemus. Per eundem. (Geeg. Sac, Miss. Sab.) 

THIS Collect is a translation of that which is 
found in the Missal of Sarum, and which 
is traced back to the Sacramentary of Gregory. 
Cranmer, in translating it, has added a few hap- 
py touches, which shall be noticed as we go along. 
But even Gregory cannot be called the original 
author of the Collect. He derived the leading- 
thoughts of it from the Sacramentary of Gelasius, 
and embodied them in language of his own. 

" Grant, we beseech thee, Almighty God, that 
like as we do believe thy only-begotten Son to 
have ascended." Gelasius's Collect also had a 
mention of reaching forth by faith to heaven, 



THE ASCENSION DAY. 225 

and ultimately arriving there by a holy conversa- 
tion. No doubt what suggested our faith in the 
Ascension, was the iiight which the holy Apostles 
enjoyed of this great mj'stery. He '' manifedJy 
appeared to all His Apostles " (as our Proper Pref- 
ace has it) " and in their sight ascended up into 
heaven." The reason of ocular demonstration 
having been granted to the Apostles is thus given 
by Bishop Pearson: "They did not see Him when 
He rose, but they saw Him when He ascended; 
because an eye-witness was not necessar}^ unto 
the act of His resurrection, but it was necessary 
unto the act of His ascension." Ours it is to be- 
lieve firmly in what the Apostles on that great 
occasion saw, and thus to inherit the blessing- 
pronounced by our Lord upon those " that have 
not seen, and yet have believed." 

" To have ascended into the heavens," — plural. 
But in the Proper Preface it is: "He in their 
sight ascended up into heaven," — singular. So in 
the Lord's Prayer, though the difference of num- 
ber is not represented in our translation, we 
have: "Our Father, which art in the heavens" 
(plural), and, " Thy will be done in earth, as it is 
in heaven " (singular). By the heavens are meant 
the lower heavens, the heaven in which birds flit 
and clouds float, the heaven in which planets roll 
along their orbits. We read of St. Paul's having 
been " caught up to the third heaven," so that 
Scripture recognizes more heavens than one. 
And of these lower heavens w^e are expressly told 
that Christ ascended through them and above 



226 THE ASCENSION DAY. 

them. "We have a great high priest, that is 
passed" (not "into," as it is in our Enghsh 
translation, but) "through tlie heavens." And 
again: "He that descended is the same also that 
ascended up far above all heavens." Heaven, the 
singular, signifies the highest heaven, the Pres- 
ence-chamber of the Divine Majesty, the throne, 
— according to that word of the Prophet's, " The 
heaven is my throne, and the earth is my foot- 
stool," and of the Apostle's, Christ is " entered 
into heaven itself, now to appear" (a peculiar 
word — to appear as a counsel does, to represent 
before a court) "in the presence of God for us." 
" That like as we do believe," etc., etc., " so 
we may also in heart and mind thither ascend." 
This is the fruit which (and which alone) will 
satisfactorily prove our belief in the Ascension 
to be a genuine one. Genuine belief will be fol- 
lowed by corresj^onding practice. And what, in 
this case, is corresponding practice ? An ascen- 
sion with Christ in heart and mind. — Cranmer 
introduced the word " heart," and most happily. 
The reason why our minds are so little in hea- 
ven is, that our hearts are so little there. The 
reason why our thoughts are so little occupied 
with Christ, is that our affections are so little 
set upon Him. One who is the object of earthly 
love is much thought of; the mind flies off to 
him whenever it is disengaged, simply because 
the heart is bound up in him. An image drawn 
from earthly love, however, though helpful as 
far as it goes, can only very imperfectly repre- 



THE ASCENSION DAY. 227 

sent the union whicli subsists between His fol- 
lowers and tlie risen Saviour. It is not merel}^ 
the union of the lover with the object of his 
love, but the union of the limbs with the head, 
of the branch with the root, of the streamlet 
with its source, of the ray with the sun, Cran- 
mer, it should be remarked, inserted the word 
"ascend"; the petition of the L?<,tin Collect is 
simply for dwelling (mentally) in heavenly places, 
not for ascending thither. 

" And with Him continually dwell." The " with 
Him continually " is also Cranmer's insertion. And 
a most sio'nificant insertion it is. It seems to have 

O 

been suggested by one of the Ascension Collects 
in the Sacramentary of Gelasius, in which the 
petition is, that, " according to thy promise, thou 
mayest ever live with us on earth, and we with 
thee in heaven." "With Him." We pray, then, 
that, by the constant upward tendency of the 
thoughts and affections, we may ascend and 
dwell with Him, according to that word of the 
Apostle's: "If ye then be risen with Christ, seek 
those things which are above, where Christ sit- 
teth on the right hand of God. Set your affec- 
tion on things above, not on things on the earth." 
" Gontinually dwell." A strong expression, when 
used (as it is here), of the Christian's i^resent con- 
dition. Yet it is strictly Scriptural. " Our con- 
versation, says St. Paul, "is in heaven" — which 
is as nearly as possible equivalent to saying, 
" Our home is there — -the home of our hopes, 
of our desires, of our affections." And as, in vir- 



228 SUNDAY AFTER ASCENSION DAY. 

tue of our union with Christ by the Holj Ghost, 
we are said to dimll xmtli Him- continually in His 
heavenly home, so reciprocally is He said to 
dwell in our hearts by faith, and He and His 
Father are said to make their abode with them 
who love Him and keep His words. 



5Cl)e $untJaj} after aiscension ©ag. 

God the King of glory, who hast exalted thine only 
Son Jesus Christ with great iriwrnph unto thy Icing' 
dom in heaven; We beseech thee, leave us not com- 
fortless; but send to us thine Holy Ghost to comfort 
us, and exalt us unto the same place tuhither our 
Saviour Christ is gone before, who liveth and reign- 
eth with thee and the Holy Ghost, one God, world 
without end. Amen. 

rex glories, Domine virtutum, qui triumphator hodie 
super omnes ccelos ascendisti, ne derelinquas nos 
orphanos, sed mitte promissum Patris in nos Spir- 
itum veritatis. (Antiphon for Vespers on Ascen- 
sion Day in the Sarum Breviary.) 

THE Collect for the Sunday after Ascension 
Day in the old Latin Offices made no al- 
lusion whatever to the great event which had 
been commemorated on the previous Thursday. 
It was probably for this reason that our He- 
formers in 1549 drew up a new Collect, remodel- 
ling for that purpose, and expanding at the close 
a beautiful prayer which appeared as an antiphon 
for the Ascension Day, and which ran thus: — "O 



SUNDAY AFTER ASCENSION DAY. 229 

Lord of hosts, the King of gioiy, who to-day 
didst ascend in triumph far above all heavens, 
do not leave us orphans, but send upon us the 
promise of the Father, even the Spirit of truth." 
This antiphon had great associations for the Eng- 
lish Church; for it is mentioned as one of those 
which, when he was yielding gradually to his last 
sickness. Venerable Bede used to sing in his cell 
at Jarrow. " And when he came to that word," 
says the narrator, '•' ' Do not leave us,' he burst 
into tears and wept much." It was well and 
wisely done by our Reformers, to preserve such 
an antiphon in the shaj)e of a collect. The 
antiphon, it will be seen, was addressed to the 
Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, not (as 
the Collect is) to the First. Collects addressed 
to our Lord are indeed very rare, but our Ee- 
formers themselves had ah'eady furnished one 
exception in the Collect for the first Sunday in 
Lent; and surely here was a case abundantly 
justifying another. For, we are told by St. Luke 
that, after witnessing the Ascension, the Apostles 
" worshipped " our Lord (that is, directly recog- 
nized His Deity), " and returned to Jerusalem 
with great joy." And it is a real source of regret 
that in turning this beautiful anthem to account 
as a collect Cranmer and his coadjutors did not 
retain the direct address to our Lord, as the con- 
tinuation of the homage which His Apostles of- 
fered to Him on the mount of the Ascension, and 
that they have diverted from Him to the Father 
the Scriptui-al title of "King of glory," which the 



230 SUNDAY AFTER ASCENSION DAY. 

twenty-fourth Psalm, understood in its Christian 
sense, clearly ascribes to Him. 

Both Epistle and Gospel harmonize remark- 
ably with the Collect. In the Gospel our Lord 
promises, and leads the Apostles to expect, the 
gift of the Comforter, whom He would send unto 
them from the Father, and for whose coming the 
Collect is a petition. In the Epistle we are ex- 
horted, inasmuch as the end of all things (that 
is, the second coming of Christ) is at hand, to be 
sober and watch unto prayer, to exercise charity, 
hospitality, and employ ourselves in mutual edi- 
fication. 

" O God the King of glory, who hast exalted 
thine only Son Jesus Christ imfh great triumph 
unto thy kingdom in heaven." The idea of a 
triumph finds its Scriptural sanction in the Epis- 
tle to the Colossians: "Having spoiled principali- 
ties and powers, He made a show of them openly, 
triumphing over them in it " (i. e., in the cross). 

"We beseech thee, leave us not comfoiiless." 
The word in the original is "orphans," which 
our translators would have done better to pre- 
serve. For it establishes a correspondence with 
one of the great titles, which the Prophet Isaiah 
gives to Christ, " the everlasting Father," as also 
with His own designation of His disciples as 
"little children." 

" But send to us thine Holy Ghost to comfort 
us." The Greek word translated "Comforter" 
means, according to its etymology, merely an 
advocate. And this is the rendering actually 



SUNDAY AFTER ASCENSION DAY. 231 

adopted in our version iu a, passage of St. John's 
first E]3istle: — "If any man sin, we have an ad- 
vocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the right- 
eous." But it is to be considered that there are 
Iko Hebrew words of the Old Testament, for 
which the Greek has only one equivalent, and 
that one of these signifies a consoler in trouble, 
and is rendered in Job " comforter " (" miserable 
comforters are ye aU "), while ^\q other means, 
"mediator, intercessor, advocate." "Comforter," 
therefore, is the rendering to which we give the 
decided preference, being the more comprehen- 
sive term of the two; for every one who pleads 
our cause is, in that respect, a comforter, though 
not every comforter is an advocate. 

"And exalt us unto the same place whither 
our Saviour Christ is gone before." Queen Eliz- 
abeth's Latin translation shows that this is not 
a distinct petition, but dependent, like " to com- 
fort us," on " Send to us thine Holy Ghost." 
The office of the Holy Ghost, as regards our- 
selves, is not simply to comfort, but to exalt. 
His comfort is an " holy comfort," as j^ou have 
it expressed in the Collect for Whitsun Day; it 
does not leave us in the low grovelling state in 
which it found us, but refines, elevates, quickens 
us. Some consolations are mere sedatives; but 
this is a stimulant as well as a sedative, and will 
not allow us to settle down on the lees of a car- 
nal indifference. It makes us aspire in heart and 
mind to those things above, "where Chiist sitteth 
on the right hand of God." 



232 WHITSUN DAY. 



ijttsim 3iag, 



God, who as at flu's time didst ieacli the liearts of iliy 
faithful people, hy the sending to them the light of 
thy Holy Spirit; Grant us hy the same Spirit to have 
a right judgment in all things, and evermore to re- 
joice in His holy comfort; through the merits of 
Christ Jesus our Saviour, who liveth and reigneth 
with thee, in the unity of the same Spirit, one God^ 
ivorld without end. Amen. 

Deus, qui hodierna die corda jidelimn Sancti Spiritus 
illustratione docuisti; da nobis in eodem Spiritu recta 
sapere, et de ejus semper consolatione gaudere. Per. 
In unitate ejusdem. (Geeg. Sac, Miss. Sab.) 

1"^ HE two or three slight additional touches, 
which Cranmer and his colleagues have given 
to this ancient Collect in preparing it for the use 
of the Reformed Church, are certainly very happy. 
It may be called generally a prayer for light and 
love; and the intimate relations in which light 
and love stand to one another are not obscurely 
indicated in it. The first point to which atten- 
tion needs to be called, is the correspondence of 
the body of the prayer with the invocation. The 
petition is twofold — for a right judgment and for 
comfort. The invocation speaks of the teaching 
and illumination, which attended upon the out- 
pouring of the Spirit at Pentecost; this corres- 
ponds with the "right judgment" for which we 
sue at the present day. But there is a glance at 
" the comfort " no less than at the " right judg- 



WHITSUN DAY. 233 

ment " in the earlier part of the prayer. For it 
is said that God taught ^Hlie hearts," — not merely 
the minds, — of His faithful ones, by the illumina- 
tion of His Holy Spirit. And it is the heart 
which is the organ of comfort as well as of love, 
which opens in trouble to receive the balm of 
consolation shed upon it by the assurance of 
God's love, and of the love of our brethren. 

First, we recite the fundamental fact upon 
which the petition is based, — the outpouring of 
the Holy Ghost at Pentecost. " O God, who as 
at this time didst teach the hearts of thy faithful 
people, by the sending to them the light of thy 
Holy Spirit." Observe once again, that it is the 
heart which the Holy Ghost teaches, not the 
mind; or rather He teaches the mind through 
the heart. You will see this is the case of uned- 
ucated people, where the mind has received no 
natural cultivation, and perhaps is very limited 
in its range of ideas. Let but the heart be 
touched with divine truth, and it is astonishing 
with what readiness the mind opens itself to the 
access of rehgious ideas, and even what a general 
sharpening all the intellectual faculties undergo. 
The philosophy of this is that, in the natural 
state of man, his mind is clouded as to moral 
and spiritual truth by the prepossessions of his 
heart, which therefore must be removed and dis- 
sipated before he can discern the truth clearly. 

"Grant us by the same Sjiii'lt to have a right 
judgment in all things," — us of the present day, 
after the lapse of so many centuries, profiting by 



234 WHITS UN DAY. 

all the experiences through which the Church has 
passed since the day of Pentecost. It would be 
a great mistake (though it is one into which 
many fall) to conceive of the light shed abroad 
at Pentecost as if it were a grand blaze vouch- 
safed once for all to the primitive disciples, but 
not capable of increase or of extension to those 
who should succeed to their faith. The subse- 
quent narrative of the Acts of the Apostles ought 
to correct this error. True, our Blessed Lord 
had expressly commissioned His Apostles to 
"make disciples of all the nations"; but divine 
words are like seeds, they require to lie long in 
the soil of the mind before they disentangle the 
germ, sprout, shoot, blossom, bear fruit. Even 
the Holy Spirit, when we are in full possession 
of His influences, only developes gradually to our 
apprehensions the words of God, and uses our ex- 
perience in developing them. Pascal's celebrated 
dictum that Theology is a stationary science, set 
up in stereotype in the primitive age, and there- 
fore incapable of receiving any accession as time 
goes on, requires a good deal of guarding to pre- 
vent it from insinuating what is erroneous. Holy 
Scripture, no doubt, and the Creeds of the Uni- 
versal Church, are both immutably fixed, so that 
nothing can be added to or taken away from 
them. But the Church's understanding of Holy 
Scripture and the Creeds ought to grow larger 
and fuller with her experience ; nor should we be 
at all staggered at finding occasion to modify, or 
even to retract some views of Divine truth which 



WHITSUN DAY. 235 

we have hitherto held tenaciousl}'. The founda- 
tions of the faith are not in the least affected 
by man's misunderstanding of them. Pentecost 
light is, in the experience both of the individual 
and the Church, a waxing light, " which shinetli 
more and more unto the perfect da3^" 

" Grant us to have a right judgment in all 
things." These last words, " in all things," were 
inserted b}^ our Reformers, and most significant 
they are. Not in grave and sacred matters only, 
not alone in the interpretation of Holy Scripture, 
but even in our little secular affairs, and more 
especially in questions of a casuistical character, 
where the path of duty is not obvious, and two 
contrary principles, equally Scriptural, seem to 
lead in different directions, — even here we may 
seek to be guided to a " right judgment " by the 
Spirit, who taught the hearts of the faithful at 
Pentecost, if only we will subniit to Him for His 
guidance an unbiased heart, the needle of which 
swings perfectly loose on the face of the com- 
pass, and has no attraction to any particular 
quarter. It is a mockery to ask light or counsel 
of the Spirit, when we have made up our mind 
to pursue a certain course, or to abide by a par- 
ticular opinion. 

"And evermore rejoice in His holy comfort." 
The " evermore " and the " holy " are additional 
touches from Cranmer's pen, both of them ex- 
pressive. The " evermore " which might seem a 
needless verbosity, reminds us most usefully of 
the Apostle's precepts, which extend to every 



236 WHITSUN DAY. 

hour of our lives: "Rejoice in the Lord alway; 
and again I say, Bejoice." Nehemiah and Ezra 
would not allow the people to be sorry, because 
the joy of the Lord was their strength. The 
word " holy," as descriptive of the Spirit's com- 
fort, opens an equally precious vein of thought. 
The comfort of the Spirit, unlike the comforts of 
the world and the flesh, is tempered, chastened, 
restrained by godly fear. To use the phrase 
employed in the Acts, descriptive of the early 
Churches after the collapse of Saul's persecution, 
he walks " in the fear of the Lord^ and in the com- 
fort of the Holy Ghost." 

The appropriateness of the words, "in the 
unity of the Holy Ghost," which here make their 
appearance for the first and last time in the Col- 
lects, deserves a word of comment. Whitsun 
Day is the great festival of the Holy Ghost, It 
is meet and right, • therefore, that the Church 
should give us on this day such a glimpse, as we 
are capable of receiving, into the mysterious re- 
lation of the Holy Spirit to the two other Per- 
sons of the Blessed Trinity. And the glimpse 
given us is this, that the Holy Spirit is the uni- 
fying principle in the Godhead — what the key- 
stone is to the arch, what the orb of the sun is 
to its light and its heat. Thus, too, are we grad- 
ually led on towards the great doctrine which 
will next Sunday be proposed for our medita- 
tion, the doctrine that the Three Divine Persons 
are held together in Unity, — that although three 
Persons, they are " not three Gods, but one God." 



TRINITY SUNDAY. 237 



Erinitg $untiau* 

Almiglity and everlasting God, who hast given unto ns 
thy se^'vanfs grace, by the confession of a true faith, 
to acknowledge the glory of the eternal Trinity, and 
in the power of the Divine Majesty to worsliip the 
Unity; We beseech thee, that thou wouldest keep us 
stedfast in this faith, and evermore defend us from 
all adversities, icho livest and reignest, one God, 
icorld without end. Amen. 

Omnipotens sempiterne Deus, qui dedisti famulis tuis in 
confessione verce fidei celernce Trinitatis gloriam 
agnoscere, et in potentia m,ajestatis adorare Unita- 
tem; qucesumus, ut ejusdem fidei fir mitate ab omnibus 
semper muniamur adversis. Quivivis. (Geeg, Sac. 
Miss. Sae.) 

THE Collect for Trinity Sunday, which comes 
down to us, like most of the other Collects, 
from the old Service Books of the Church before 
the Reformation, has been altered for the worse, 
not indeed by the Reformers but by Bishop 
Cosin after the Savoy Conference in 1661. His 
alteration takes away the point which the petition 
of the Collect had, as it stood formerly. In both 
Prayer Books of Edward VI., as in that of Eliz- 
abeth, the petition of the Collect ran thus: "We 
beseech thee that through the stedfastness of 
this faith we may evermore be defended from all 
adversity." This is the exact literal translation 
Ox the original Latin ; and the breaking it up into 
two petitions, " "We beseech thee, that thou would- 
est keep us stedfast in this faith, and evermore 



238 TRINITY SUNDAY. 

defend us from all adversities," only weakens tlie 
force of the prayer, without really adding any- 
thing to it. 

The praj'er, as it stood originally, was, that 
through the stedfastness of our faith in the 
Holy Trinity we might be defended (the Latin 
word rather means fortified, — defended, as in a 
fortress or stronghold, by walls and bars) against 
all adversity. The deepest thing that God has 
taught us about His nature and character is that 
there are, in one single indivisible Godhead, 
Three Sacred Persons, the Father, the Son, and 
the Holy Ghost. Into the faith or belief of this 
Triune Godhead we were baptized, according to 
the precept of the Lord Himself: " Go ye and 
teach all nations, baptizing them into the name " 
(observe, not into the names, for there is but one 
God, though within the precinct of His Infinite 
Nature there be three Persons,) " of the Father, 
and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." But 
how is the Name of the Blessed Trinity a strong 
tower, or fortification, to the righteous man against 
aU adversities? Suppose sickness threatens him, 
or poverty, or death, or that dear fiiends are 
taken away from him, and his hearth and home 
are made desolate thereby. If he stedfastly be- 
lieves that God is His own most tender and lov- 
ing Father, much wiser, and much more sym- 
jDathizing, than any human parent can be — " able 
to do exceeding abundantly above all that we 
ask or think" — if he really believes this, and 
does not merely say he believes it, do you not 



TRINITY SUNDAY. 239 

see that the giorious truth is a comfort to him, 
whatever it may please God to take away; a grand 
stronghold to fall back upon and run into, when 
adversity presses? But perhaps conscience whis- 
2:)ers that, though God has been a good Father 
to him, he has been a bad son to God, ungrate- 
ful, undutiful, profligate, no more worthy to be 
called a son. But God the Father is only one 
article of his faith. He believes also stedfastly 
in God the Son; or, to state the same thing in 
a difierent form, he believes, not in an abstract 
God, but in God " the Father of our Lord Jesus 
Christ." He, and He alone of all God's human 
children, was a perfectly dutiful and submissive 
Son. He submitted to the curse of the law in 
His death and passion. He fulfilled the right- 
eousness of the law in His life. Now, if a man 
really believes, and does not merety say that he 
believes, in the Son of God, he has all the merits 
and dutifulness of the Son of God laid to his 
account in his dealings with the Father; and thus, 
whatever accusations conscience may lay against 
him, he has a strong fortress to fall back upon in 
his stedfast belief in the Son of God. — But is it 
not an adverse circumstance indeed, that although 
God forgives and accepts him for Christ's sake, 
his nature is so corrupt that he is sure to fall 
into sin again ? Is it not worse and more dread- 
ful to sin against pardoning love, than merely to 
sin against the majesty of God ? But he who is 
lighteous by faith in the Name of God has still 
his all-sufficient resource in that Ever-Blessed 



240 TRINITY SUNDAY. 

Name. " I believe in the Holy Ghost," the liv- 
ing bond of union between God and His human 
children, shedding His love abroad in their 
hearts, and making them reciprocate that love; 
the living bond of union, finally, between one 
child of God and another, drawing all hearts to- 
gether in approach to a common Father through 
a common Mediator, as the rays of a circle draw 
near to one another, in drawing near to the cen- 
tre. If a man really' believes, and not merely 
says he believes, in the Holy Ghost, he believes 
and confides in, and thus possesses that power, 
which is the source and principle of all holiness, 
the strength and vitality of all virtue. So that 
through the firmness of our faith in the Trinity 
we are indeed fortified against all adversities. 

One more remark on the earlier part of this 
interesting Collect. Our Church prayers imply 
very much in those who use them, so that, in 
using them thoughtlessly, it is only too easy to 
come before God, with a he in one's mouth, and 
to take His Holy Name in vain. "Almighty God, 
who hast given unto us grace by the confession 
of a true faith to acknowledge the glory of the 
eternal Trinity," etc. We confess the true faith, 
doubtless with our lips. Probably no reader of 
these pages disputes, or questions it, or raises 
any sort of objection against those definitions of 
it which are drawn out in our Creeds. But can 
we say truly that God has " given us grace " to 
confess the true faith? Have we felt our need 
of this faith, as a support and comfort in the 



FIRST SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY. 241 

hour of trial? And under the sense of that 
need, have we inteUigently and affectionately re- 
ceived it? Or do we merely confess the true 
faith, because we happen to have been brought 
up in a country where by God's mercy the true 
light shineth; and should we have been Buddhists 
or Mahometans, if brought up in countries where 
Buddhism or Mahometanism prevail? God keep 
us all from making an insincere profession in 
His presence, and amid the solemnities of His 
worship. 



Ei)e S'xt%i $uutia2 after Crtnitg. 

God, the strength of all those who put tlielr trust in 
thee, Mercifully accept our prayers; and because 
through the loeakness of our mortal nature we can do 
no good thing icithout thee, grant ns the help of thy 
grace, that in keeping thy commandments we may 
please thee, both in will and deed; through Jesus 
Christ our Lord. Amen. 

Deus, in te sperantium fortitudo, adesto propitius invo- 
calionibus nostris; ei quia sine te nihil potest mor- 
talis infirmitas, prcesta auxilium gratice tuce, id in 
exsequendis mnndalis tuis, et voluatate tibi et actione 
placeamus. Per Dominum. (GeL. Sac, Miss. 
Sae.) 

IN this short prayer we have a train of conse- 
quences traced in the spiritual world; a 
golden chain with several links in it, the first 
link suspended from the throne of God, and the 
last link again attached to that throne. We have 
a sense of human weakness leading to trust in 



242 FIRST SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY. 

God; trust expressing itself in prayer; prayer 
fetching down grace : grace enabling us to keep 
the commandments; observance of the command- 
ments winning the smile and favor of God. 

1. A seyise of human weakness leading to trust 
in God. — -This finds expression in the words, 
" through the weakness of our mortal nature we 
can do no good thing without thee." It will lend 
force to these words to observe that in a certain 
sense they might be used of our blessed Lord's 
human natui'e, but that they gain much more 
point when used of our own, which is not only 
weak and mortal, but (as His was not) corrupt, 
and fallen, and full of tendencies to all manner of 
sin, so that through the w^eakness of our mortal na- 
ture we can do no good thing without God. When 
the sense of this moral Aveakness becomes deeply 
rooted in us, as it can only be by our trying to 
live uprightly and failing over and over again, 
this throws us back on trust in God, by which 
trust His strength is made ours; — "O God, the 
strength of all those who put their trust in thee." 
Trust in God is a moral leaning upon God, ac- 
cording to that beautiful expression in another 
Collect: "they who do lean only upon the hope 
of thy heavenly grace." 

2. Trust expressing itself in prayer. — "Mercifully 
accept our prayers."' Prayer is the voice of trust. 
They who in the days of His flesh trusted that 
the Lord Jesus could and would heal them of their 
sickness, went to Him and asked Him to do so. 
Christ is the well. The Holy Spirit is the wa- 



FIRST SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY. 243 

ter, of which the well is fiill. Faith (or trust) is 
the muscular j)ower in the arm, by which a man 
is enabled to draw up the water. Prayer is the 
pitcher in which it is drawn up. Remember 
this illustration, and you will understand the 
close relation which subsists between trust (or 
faith) and prayer. 

3. Prayer fetching doicn grace. — " Grant us the 
help of thy grace." AYliat do we mean by God's 
grace ? I fear some people think of it as an in- 
fused quality, kneaded up into the soul like a 
chemical ingredient, and producing goodness or 
virtue therein. But in reality grace is nothing 
else than the working of God's Holy Spirit in 
the soul; it is not a quahty; it is the operation of 
a DiA'ine Person. The coming of grace into the 
soul is the coming of God into the soul; which 
indeed is implied in the opening words of the 
Collect: "O God, the strength of all those who 
put their trust in thee." 

4. Grace enabling us to keep the commandments. — 
Grant us the "help of thy grace, that in keeping 
thy commandments we ma}" please thee." " We 
beseech 3'ou," says St. Paul, "that ye receive not 
the grace of God in vain." It is received in vain, 
where the imj)ressions made by it are allowed to 
evaporate, — where the}" are not acted out in the 
conduct, and so worked into the texture of the 
character. See in how vital a relation God's grace 
stands to the keeping of His commandments. 

Do you desire a summary of these com- 
mandments, a reduction of them all to one or 



244 ■ FIRST SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY. 

two heads ? This is given us by our Lord and 
His Apostles. " "Whatsoever ye would that men 
should do to you, do ye even so to them: for 
this is the law and the proj^hets." " He that 
loveth another hath fulfilled the law." And here 
is the very real and deep-seated connection be- 
tween our Collect and its Epistle and Gospel. 
The keynote of the Epistle, sounded at its open- 
ing and again at its close, is mutual love. " Be- 
loved, let us love one another: for love is of 
God." . . . "This commandment have we from 
Him, That he who loveth God love his brother 
also." The Gospel exhibits the doom of the rich 
man, who, not on account of any vice or crime, 
but merely because he selfishly wra^^ped himself 
in his own comforts, and showed no sympathy 
with the beggar who was laid at his gate full of 
sores, was consigned to torments. 

5. OhseTvance of the commandments winning the 
iiinile and favor of God; — " that in keeping thy 
commandments we may please thee." There is 
no way of pleasing God but by keeping His com- 
mandments, or, in other words, by walking in 
love. What an inspiriting, encouraging thought 
it is, that hj a certain course of conduct on our 
part, we may, like dutiful children, win the smile 
and approbation of our Heavenly Father ! 

But mark the important words with which the 
Collect closes: — "that we may please thee both in 
ivill and deed." Can we please God in deed, with- 
out pleasing Him in will ? Impossible. Not any 
amount of restraint laid upon our outward con- 



SECOND SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY. 245 

duct will i^leiise Him, if we all the while grudge 
the restriction, and long to be free from it. Ba- 
laam dared not say am-thing but what God jout 
in his mouth, but Balaam's obedience Avas not 
j)leasing to God. But can we please God in will, 
without pleasing Him in deed ? I think we may 
occasionally. God is very apt to take the will for 
the deed, where there is no o]3portunity of doing 
the deed. But where there is the oj^portunity, 
there He expects that the will shall be perfected, 
and, as it were, brought to the birth, by the deed. 
Gathering up the one great lesson of this Col- 
lect, how nobly does it teach us that in order to 
holiness, man's honest, earnest endeavor must co- 
operate with the preventing and assisting grace 
of God ! 



E!}e $econtr ^untiag after Erinttjj, 

Lord, who never fa'dest to help and govern those whom 
thou dost bring vp in thy stedfast fear and love; 
Keep us, we beseech thee, under the protection of thy 
good providence, and make us to have a perpetual 
fear and love of thy holy Name; through Jesus Christ 
our Lord. Amen. 

Sancli nominis tui, Domine, timorem pariter et amorem 
fac nos habere perpetuum; quia nunquam tua gub- 
ernatione destituis, quos in soliditate tuce dilectionis 
instituis. Per Doniinum. (Gel. Sac, Miss. Sab.) 

THIS Collect appeared in the First and Sec- 
ond Prayer Books of Edward YI., and also 
in Queen Elizabeth's Prayer Book, in a shorter 



246 SECOND SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY. 

form than it lias at present, and in a form much 
closer to the original Latin, from which it was 
translated. At the Savoy Conference in 1661, 
its present form was substituted for its earlier 
one. The earlier form was: "Lord, make us to 
have a perpetual fear and love of thy holy name; 
for thou never failest to help and govern them 
whom thou dost bring up in thy stedfast love." 
Even thus it was not an exact translation of the 
original Latin in the Sacramentary of Grelasius, 
which ran thus: " Lord, make us to have concur- 
rently (or equally) a perpetual fear and love of 
thy holy name, because thou never failest to pilot 
those " (more literally, thou never leavest desti- 
tute of thy pilotage those) " whom thou dost 
bring up " (an admirable translation — train, rear, 
discipline, educate — there are all these notions 
in the original word) " in the stedfastness of thy 
love. " God pilots, — never fails to pilot, — all those 
whom He brings up in the stedfastness of His 
love; this is the doctrine upon which the prayer 
is built. " Make us " (therefore) " to have a per- 
petual fear and love of thy holy name." This is 
the superstructure, — the prayer built, as all effi- 
cacious prayer must be, upon sound doctrine re- 
specting God, and His ways of dealing with men 
1. *' God never fails to pilot those whom He 
brings up in the stedfastness of His love." Ob- 
serve the word " pilot," — that is the exact trans- 
lation; "help " brings in another and a different 
idea, which the translator has inserted to make 
the Collect a little richer and fuller. To pilot is 



SECOND SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY. 247 

the act of a steersman, avIio holds the hehn of a 
boat, and by turning the hehn, directs the course 
of the boat, as she traverses the waters. We can 
only pass the waves of this troublesome world in 
safety by God's steering us over them, and act- 
ing Himself as our j)ilot. This He does by His 
Providence, turning us out of the way of those 
events which would prove really disastrous, and 
guiding us, not always b}^ any means into smooth 
waters, or waters easy to navigate, but guiding 
us to come across such persons, to meet with 
such a lot, to have such things happen to us, 
as shall turn out for our everlasting Avelfare. So 
full as life is of hazards, dangers, casualties, 
troubles, what an immense comfort it must be 
to feel perfectly assured that God is j^iloting 
us with His wisdom and love, so that, although 
many painful and distressing things may happen 
to us, nothing really mischievous, nothing against 
our highest interests, can. Now, when may we 
feel this assurance ? The Prayer Book shall an- 
swer: "God never fails to pilot those whom He 
brings up in the stedfastness of His love." The 
Bible, which is better than the Prayer Book, shall 
answer: " We know that all things " Avork together 
for good to them that love God" " to them who are 
the called according to His purpose." God '■'■hrincji 
up " certain persons in the stedfastness of His love. 
To bring up children is to rear, instruct, train, 
educate them. And education is a gradual work, 
" line upon line, precept upon precept, here a 
little, and there a little," 



248 SECOND SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY. 

Is God, then, training and schooling us in His 
love? Do we gain a greater insight year by 
year into the fulness and freeness of Christ's 
love ? Do we keep his commandments more 
strictly than we did a year ago ? 

2. " Make us to have concurrently a perpetual 
fear and love of thy holy name." In the doctrine 
of the Collect, as it was originally drawn up, fear 
is not expressed, though it is implied. The word 
" stedfastness " implies it. A love without fear 
is like a boat without ballast; it has no stedfast- 
ness; it is wavering, fluctuating, unstable, uncer- 
tain. And observe the word which our translators 
have dropped altogether, jpa?'iYe?^, — "concurrent- 
1}^" The genuine fear of God and the genuine 
love of God - advance j^ari pa^^su; as one grows, 
the other grows also. The more ardently a^ man 
loves God, the more profoundly he fears Him. 
But some one will ask, how this is consistent with 
what we read in St. John's First Epistle, — " there 
is no fear in love, but perfect love casteth out 
fear because fear hath tormeht. He that feareth 
is not made perfect in love." St. John is speak- 
ing, not of the childlike fear of God, which is not 
only compatible with love, but absolutely essen- 
tial to its stedfastness, but of that slavish fear 
which bad men have of God, which devils have, 
which our forefather Adam entertained after his 
fall, when, instead of going out to meet his best 
friend, on hearing His voice in the garden, he 
slunk away among the bushes, and explained it 
thus : " I heard thy voice in the garden, and / 



SECOND SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY. 249 

wa8 afraid, because I was naked; and I hid m}-- 
self." " Thou believest that there is one God," 
says St. James, " thou doest well, the devils also 
beheve and tremble." This also is slavish fear, 
which will gradually vanish as we become per- 
fect in love. But what the Epistle to the He- 
brews calls, " reverence and godly fear," so far 
from vanishing, will increase with the increase 
of love. 

But "make us to have a perpetual fear and 
love." Of what? Of Thee? No; but "of thy 
holy Name." God's Name means His revealed 
character? Then what is His revealed char- 
acter? It has two great features — infinite love 
and infinite j)urity. God will forgive to the 
very uttermost ; this is part of His charac- 
ter. He will not suffer sin upon those whom 
He accepts. Keep in view this latter part of 
His character; and you will walk before Him 
in "reverence and godly fear," Keep in view 
the former part; and you will walk with Him 
in affectionate confidence and love. 



250 THIRD SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY. 



Cfje CJjirti SunDas after SCrinitg. 



Lord, loe beseech thee mercifully to hear us; and grant 
that we, to lohom iliou hast given an hearty desire to 
pray, may by thy mighty aid be defended and com- 
forted in all dangers and adversities, through Jesus 
Christ our Lord. Amen. 

Deprecationem nostram, qucesumus, Domine, benignus 
exaudi: et quibus supplicand.i prcestas affectum, tribue 
defensionis auxilium. PerDominum. (Gbeg.Sac, 
Miss. Sak.) 



THIS Collect is derived from Gregory's Sac- 
ram entary. As it stands there, and as it 
was originally translated by our Reformers, it 
was a little bald and bleak, and seemed to de- 
mand two or three words of expansion to bring 
out its full significance. These two or three 
words Bishop Cosin happily added at the last 
Revision in 1661. For the additional words rep- 
resent new thoughts, although these thoughts 
are wrapped up in embryo in the old prayer. 

" O Lord, we beseech thee mercifully to hear 
us." The literal translation in the Sacramentary 
is, " O Lord, we beseech thee, graciously hear 
our deprecation." It is to be regretted that we 
have no good English word representing the* 
force of the Latin word "deprecation." Depre- 
cation means prayer against evils which are 
hanging over our heads, and which we foresee 
as contingencies not unlikely to arise. The five 



THIRD SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY. 251 

petitions in the earlier part of the Litan}^ be- 
ginning with "from," are deprecations. The 
Epistle warns us that our " adversary the devil, 
as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom 
he may devour " and bids us " humble '*' our- 
selves " under the mighty hand of God." This 
Collect is the humble " deprecation," by which 
we endeavor to put in practice the Apostle's holy 
precept. 

" Grant that we, to whom thou hast given an 
hearty desire to pray," — ^Hterally, "to whom thou 
givest the longing for humble prayer," the word 
used for "pray" in the Latin being one which 
properly indicates prayer on bended knee, the 
prayer of a suppliant. The idea is that, under 
the pressure of some danger or trouble, we feel 
irresistibly impelled to go to the footstool of God, 
and prostrate ourselves there in lowly entreaty. 
Observe that the " hearty desire to pray " must 
be "given" by God; the impulse under which 
we are driven to approach Him comes from Him- 
self. St. Francis of Sales, quoting that verse of 
the Canticles, "The flowers appear on the earth," 
saj's, ""WTiat are the flowers of our hearts, O 
Philothea, but good desires ? " Desires to pray 
are an evidence that God is quickening the soul; 
and, if cherished and allowed their due course, 
those desii'es will be "brought to good effect," — 
to the realized result of hol}^ tempers, hoty char- 
acter, holy conduct. These are the fruits and 
harvest of the sanctified heart, as good desires 
are its flowers. 



252 THIRD SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY. 

" May by thy mighty aid be defended." Here 
the prayer ends in Gregory's Sacramentary, and 
here it ended in Cranmer's translation of it. At 
the last Revision, Cosin, with his admirable liter- 
ary adroitness added, " and comforted in all dan- 
gers and adversities," thus expanding into a blos- 
som what the original gives us merely in the 
bud. " Dangers," of course, correspond to " de- 
fended"; and "adversities " to "comforted"; the 
prayer is, that in all dangers which threaten, God 
would defend us, and in all adversities which be- 
set, He would comfort us. And it is "by" His 
mighty aid " that we beseech Him both to de- 
fend and comfort us. That He should by His 
mighty aid " defend " us, requires no explana- 
tion. But how does He "comfort" us by His 
aid ? Just as His aid is a defence, so the con- 
sciousness and sense of His aid is a comfort — 
the greatest of comforts. Let us make the re- 
flection that, when dangers impend, and trouble 
our hearts by their frowning aspect, if we are of 
the number of those who fear God, and who, 
because they fear Him, resort to His throne of 
grace in distress, and implore Him for deliver- 
ance, angel guardianship will be as really and 
truly vouchsafed to us as it was to Elisha; for it 
is written, quite generally, and without any spe- 
cial reference, " The angel of the Lord encamp- 
eth round about them that fear Him, and deliv- 
ereth them." 

Except so far as we are conscious of this 
guardianship, we cannot be "comforted," how- 



THIRD SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY. 253 

ever securely we may be " defended," by God's 
"miglit}^ aid." By the word "comforted" we 
are iinavoidabh'- reminded of that Person in the 
Holy Trinity, to whom we must look for internal 
consolation b}^ the shedding abroad in our hearts 
the sense of God's love in Christ. It is He who 
alone can effectually comfort in all adversities. 
The Hteral meaning of the word " adversities " 
is, things against us. Jacob gives us the exact 
notion of it, when he cries out in desj)air, 
on the proposal to send Benjamin into Egypt, 
"All these things are against me." The things, 
however, which seemed to be most "against" 
him were at that very time "working together 
for good" to him: the way was even then being- 
prepared for his favorite Joseph's restoration to 
him, for a peaceful old age under Joseph's joro- 
tection, and a happy, hopeful death in Joseph's 
arms. 



254 FOURTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY. 



W^t jFourtl} Suntiaa after Ertnitg* 

God, ilie protector of all thai trust in tJiee, icithout 
ivhom nothing is strong, nothing is holy; Increase 
and multiply upon us thy mercy; that, thou being 
our ruler and guide, toe may so pass through things 
temporal, that ice finally lose not the things eternal; 
Grant this, lieavenly Father, for Jesus Christ's 
sake our Lord. Amen. 

Protector in te sperantium Deus, sioie quo nihil est va- 
lidum, nihil sanctum; multiplica super nos miser i- 
cordiam tuam; ut te rector e, te duce, sic transeamus 
per bona temporalia, ut non amittamus externa. Per. 
(Gbeg. Sac, Miss. Sae.) 

THIS Collect is a faithful translation of the 
original Latin in the Sacramentarj^ of 
Gregory, except in one particular. A word is 
found in the original, which is left out in the 
translation; and the omission, if it has its advan- 
tages, has also its drawbacks. The last clause 
runs thus in the Latin: — " That we may so pass 
through temporal good things that we lose not 
eternal good things." The compilers of our 
Prayer Book have struck their pen through the 
word "good," and have thus generalized the 
aspiration of the Collect: — "That we may so 
pass through things temporal, that we finally 
lose not the things eternal." There is a certain 
gain and a certain loss in this alteration. The 
prayer gains by it in respect of applicability; it 
applies now to a wider range of circumstances 



FOURTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY. 255 

than it did as it stood originally. The point in 
the old petition, which is entirely obscured by the 
translation was this — that " temporal good things " 
(of which indeed very few men are utterly de- 
prived, so as to be altogether without any of 
them) may prove dangers and hindrances in 
our spiritual course, and that we can cnly pass 
through them safely, and in such a manner as to 
secure eternal good things, under the rule and 
guidance of God. 

The doctrine of this Collect is the doctrine 
of that sublime text: ''They that wait upon 
the Lord" (wait in pra^^er and expectation; 
wait with their eyes fixed upon God's hand, 
" as the eyes of a maiden unto the hand 
of her mistress ") " shall renew their strength " 
(their moral and spiritual strength); "they shall 
mount up with wings as eagles " (notwithstand- 
ing all the depressing, earthward influences of 
"temporal things"); "they shall run, and not be 
weary: and they shall walk, and not faint.'' 
Again, just observe the imphcation that holiness 
is moral strength. " From " God " all hoty de- 
sires, all good counsels, and all just works do 
proceed." "Without" Him "nothing is strong, 
nothing is holy." And His holiness (or moral 
strength) is drawn into our souls by trust in 
Him, hope in Him, looking to Him, waiting 
upon Him. 

The prayer based upon the above doctrine is 
very orderly and methodical. It traces the work 
of grace in the heart of man from its veiy be- 



256 FOURTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY. 

ginning to its very end. "Increase and multiply 
upon us thy mercy," — that mercy which thou 
didst show us at our Baptism, when thou didst 
engraft us into the body of Christ, — that mercy 
which was renewed at our Confirmation, in the 
bestowal upon us of the sevenfold gift of grace, 
— that mercy which if it had not been extended 
to us on many occasions, we should have been 
now irretrievably lost; for pray observe that you 
cannot increase or multiply that which does not 
exist at all, and therefore the persons, into whose 
mouth this Collect is put, are those who have al- 
ready received mercy, have tasted a little of 
God's peace, and of the riches of His love. 

But mercy, though the first step, is only the 
first step. We must not stop short in mercy, as 
many do, but go on to build upon this founda- 
tion the superstructure of a holy life. A life 
lived under God's rule and guidance, — "that 
thou being our ruler and guide." 1st., under 
His rule. The original word expresses the ac- 
tion of a helmsman in turning the rudder, or of 
a horseman in turning the rein. This word de- 
notes, therefore, rather the outivard guidance of 
God's Providence, — the "putting away from" 
His people " all hurtful things, and giving them 
those things which be profitable for them." — But 
guidance ("that, thou being our guide") brings 
in a distinct and a deeper idea. Here we have, 
not so much the direction of God's Providence, 
as the movements and instigations of His Spirit 
and His Word. " Thou shalt guide me with thy 



FOURTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY. 257 

counsel," says the Psalmist, " and afterward re- 
ceive me to glorj." And the counsel is given ex- 
ternally and internally. Externall}", in the vol- 
ume of Holy Scripture. Vain and presumptuous 
is all hope of receiving counsel from God, unless 
we listen for His voice in the reverent devout 
perusal of His lively oracles. We must read our 
Bible upon our knees, with listening, obedient, 
docile spirits, fully prepared to accept and act 
upon an}^ answer God may give us through His 
Scriptures. But we are to look for another and 
a still more comfortable guidance witliln, in the 
depth of our consciences, to all the motions of 
which we should be very attentive and true. "I 
w^ill instruct thee and teach thee in the way which 
thou shall go: I will guide thee with mine eye." 
If we be His dutiful children, w^e shall seek to 
realize His presence continually. We shall turn 
with relief to the thought of Him from time to 
time, and shall find His eye resting upon us with 
changeless love. And the end will be, "thou 
wilt afterward receive me to glory." We shall 
not lose the good things eternal, which " eye 
hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have en- 
tered into the heart of man," and of which our 
Baptism made us inheritors. But what a solemn 
thought is it that we may lose them, although we 
have been once, as it were, seized of them ! And 
what a still more solemn thought, that whether 
we finally lose or retain them depends entirely 
on the shape which our character takes in "pass- 
ing through things temporal," and that our char- 



258 FIFTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY. 

acter is determined by our conduct! "Passing 
through things temporal," — it is what we are do- 
ing every instant, whether we are conscious of it 
or not, — every hour our frail bark is dropping 
down the tide of life, whether we will or no. 
But how are we making the passage ? and what 
shall be the issue ? 



5Cf)e jFiftf) Sunt! as after ^Trtnttg* 

Grant, Lord, we beseech thee, thai the course of this 
'World may he so peaceably ordered by thy govern- 
ance, that thy Church may joyfully serve thee in all 
godly quietness; through Jesus Christ our Lord. 
Amen. 

Da nobis, qucesumus, Domine, ut et mundi cursus pa- 
cifice nobis tuo ordine dirigatur, el ecclesia tua iran- 
quilla devotione Icetetur. Per Dominum. (Leo 
Sac, jNIiss. Sak.) 

AMOEE literal translation of this Collect 
from the Sacramentary of Leo would be: 
" Grant to us, Lord, we beseech thee, that both 
the course of this world may be directed peace- 
ably for us by thy ordering, and that thy Church 
may rejoice in tranquil devotion. Through our 
Lord. " The variations which the translators have 
made upon the original are, (to omit smaller mat- 
ters of detail,) two. First, they have thrown the 
two petitions of the original Collect into one, 
welding them together by a "so that." This 



FIFTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY. 259 

translation brings out, much more forcibly than 
the original, the idea that the great end which 
God has in His providential governance of the 
world is the spiritual welfare of His Church. In 
a word, we are made to ask that Divine Provi- 
dence ma3' be a handmaid to Divine Grace; that 
the Kingdom of Providence may be so admin- 
istered as to second and further the Kingdom 
of Grace. — The second variation is the introduc- 
tion of a new idea, foreign to the original, by 
the word "serve"; "that thy Church may .seri?^ 
thee in godly quietness,'' in the place of, "that 
thy Church may rejoice in tranquil devotion." 
This is an important variation, and we think 
a considerable improvement. Joyful and tran- 
quil devotion is only one-half of the Christian's 
duty to God; he must also do Him active service. 
Thus the alteration (a trul}' English one, and 
one worthy of an English translator) has given 
a prominence to work, to the practical service of 
God, which was entirely wanting in the original 
prayer. 

First; God orders the affairs of this world with 
a view to the S]3iritual wellbeing of His Church, 
— to her increase and edification. This is cer- 
tainly not what the world and worldly-minded 
people suppose. To them the rise and fall of 
empires, nay, the acts of a single government, 
or a single legislature, are events of absorbing- 
interest, but of an interest which terminates in 
itself. They would learn with surprise that God 
orders and controls all these things by His Prov- 



260 FIFTH SUNDAY AFTFR TRINITY. 

iclence, with a view to serye the interests of His 
Church, which is to Him at all times " as the 
apple of His eye." Yet this is plainly the teach- 
ing of Holy Scripture. "We know that all things 
work together for good to them that love God, 
to them who are the called according to His 
purpose." 

" That thy Church may serve thee in all godly 
quietness," — that is, in all such quietness, and 
freedom from harassment and tribulation, as 
may enable her to serve thee without distrac- 
tion. These very old prayers carry us back a 
long way in the history of the Church, — they 
recall to us the days when persecution raged 
against those who were faithful to their Chris- 
tian profession; when they were liable to be 
hunted and harassed, and were even driven 
sometimes to hold their meetings for worship 
in dens and caves of the earth. People sued 
for godly quietness with all their hearts, when 
persecution was abroad in the world. 

The work of the Church, as the Church, — its 
work as distinct from the secular business, which 
many of its members may have to do, is, of course, 
to win souls for Christ, and build them up in 
Christ. And pray observe that this work may 
be done "in quietness," and very often, the more 
quietly, the more efficiently: "The kingdom of 
God Cometh not with observation, neither shall 
they say, Lo here ! or, lo there ! for, behold, the 
kingdom of God is within you." It is not always 
where most stir is made that most good is done. 

\ 



FIFTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY. 2G1 

Noisy religious movements, which people are so 
fond of nowadays, and which are the talk of the 
town at least for one season, are not the most 
finiitfiil movements. Much more real service is 
done to God, and consequently much more dis- 
service to the evil one, " in godly quietness," by 
regular, unostentatious, persevering, consistent 
efforts to do good, made by each Christian in 
his own sphere, whether it be a parish, or a Sun- 
day school, or the circumscribed district of a dis- 
trict visitor. It was said of the first great Fisher 
of men, the first great Sower of the seed of God's 
AYord : " He shall not strive, nor cry, neither shall 
any man hear His voice in the streets." Yet that 
still, small voice has sunk deeper into the heart 
of humanity, and wrought a greater change there, 
than any other words before or after. And an- 
other ingredient of the state of mind, in which 
alone efficient service can be rendered, is joy, — 
joy in the assurance of God's acceptance, favor, 
and help, — which alone can give spiritual elas- 
ticity, and lift us over those difficulties and ob- 
structions which beset more or less all faithful 
service. Any and every service is feeble which 
has not joy in it; for joy is its very moral sinew; 
" the joy of the Lord is your strength." 



262 SIXTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY. 



®f)e Stxtli Suntiag after Ertnitg. 

God, wlio hast prepared for those icho love thee such 
good things as pass man^s imdersianding; Pour into 
our hearts such love toward thee, thai we, loving thee 
above all things, may obtain thy promises, ichich ex- 
ceed all iliat we can desire; through Jesus Christ our 
Lord, Amen. 

DeuSy qui diligentibus te bona invisibilia prceparasii, 
infunde cordibus nostris tut amoris affectum: ni te 
in omnibus et super omnia diligentes, promissiones 
tuas quoe omne desideriuni super ant consequamur. 
Per Bominiim. (Gel. Sac, Miss. Sae.) 

THE study of the originals of tlie Collects, 
and of the different wording which was 
given to the translation of some of them at the 
last Review of the Prayer Book in 1661, is inter- 
esting merely as a piece of histor}^ It lets us 
into the minds of the translators and revisers, 
besides answering the much higher purpose of 
suggesting, incidentally, many edifying thoughts. 
The doctrine of the Collect now before us is 
founded on St. Paul's quotation from Isaiah in 1 
Cor. ii. 9: "Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, 
neither have entered into the heart of man, the 
things which God hath prepared for them that 
love Him." The petition of the -Collect is founded 
upon another very important text of St. Paul, 
which is found in E-oni. v. 5 : " Hope maketh not 
ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad 
in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given 



SIXTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY. 2G3 

unto us." The Latin of the original Collect 
seems to speak exclusively of our love towards 
God; for, literally translated, it runs thus: "Pour 
into our hearts the affection of thy love;" and 
our translation leaves no doubt at all that it is 
our love towards God which is intended; for it 
runs thus: "Pour into our hearts such /oue io- 
tcard thee." — Again; the aspiration of the Collect, 
as it stands in the Missal of Sarum, runs thus: — ■ 
" that we loving thee in all things and above all 
things." — The first translator of these words left 
out " above all things." This version of the as- 
l^iration continued till the last Review, when 
Bishop Cosin, apparently not wishing to retain 
both the " in all things " and the " above all 
things" of the original Latin, and preferring 
the latter phrase to the former, though Cranmer 
had not done so, erased the word " in " of the 
Black Letter Pra^^er Book, and substituted for 
it the word "' above." 

(1.) The doctrine is that "God hath prej^ared 
for those who esteem Him such good things as 
pass man's understanding." Communion mth 
the Father and the Son through the Spirit, such 
communion brings joy and peace into the soul, 
— this is the chief of the unseen good things," 
which pass man's understanding, wdiich God 
hath prepared for them that esteem Him. If we 
esteem God Himself, we shall esteem communion 
with Him. The only way of securing the fulfil- 
ment to ourselves of God's j^romises, is to desire 
their fulfilment; to have a strong appetite for. 



264 SIXTH SUNDAY ARTER TRINITY. 

and to appreciate tlie pleasures of, true religion. 
What then is at present, — I do not say our con- 
duct, but — the state of our desires and affec- 
tions? Certainly it is the wildest of all wild 
dreams to suppose that the dwelling with Grod 
and Christ hereafter would be a source of enjoy- 
ment to us, if we care nothing for the worship 
of God and Christ upon earth, and often find the 
services of the Church a very wearisome thing 
and a great restraint upon our liberty. It is a 
great mistake to suppose that the good things 
which God hath prepared for them that love 
Him are reserved eotirely for another state of 
existence. No! the true Christian has many 
a bright and happy foretaste of these good 
things now. So says the context of the j)assage, 
from which the doctrine of the Collect is drawn: 
" Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have 
entered into the heart of man, the things which 
God hath prepared for them that love Him. But 
God hath revealed them unto us by His Spirit." 

(2.) Then, since only those who esteem God 
and communion with Him, can receive from Him 
the precious pearl of that communion, the pe- 
tition is, that He would pour into our hearts 
love towards Himself, as the appointed way to 
our receiving the good things. It is God Him- 
self, a living Person, who is here held forth to 
us as the object of our love, — not "the good 
things which pass understanding," not " the prom- 
ises which exceed all that we can desire;" in a 
word, not the gifts, but the Giver. The great 



SIXTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY. 265 

things wliich God has in store for those who 
love Him are the peace and joy which flow from 
communion with Him; but we are to love Him 
even above this peace and joy; even when He 
withholds them from us, to love Him for what 
He is in Himself, and not merely for what He 
gives. How far will our love towards God stand 
this test? How far is it only love of our own 
peace of mind, of our own comfort ? or how far, 
on the other hand, is it a solid esteem and ven- 
eration of the Divine character, as surpassing in 
loveliness, and as being, even in its sterner fea- 
tures of justice, hohness, and truth, excellent and 
admirable ? 

(3.) And now for a word on the aspii-ation. 
"We have lost something by the omission of the 
words "in all things." For surely it is a valuable 
thought that " in all things " we should seek to 
love God. First; in all good things, whether of 
time or of eternity. True it is, also, of course, 
that we must love Him above all things; " He that 
loveth father or mother more than me is not 
worthy of me," etc. But suppose the love of 
father or mother, son or daughter, not to come 
into any collision with the love of Christ. Then 
what is required of us is to love Him in them, — 
to recognize in their symj)athy, affection, kind- 
ness, succor, the tokens of His fatherly regard 
for us, and of His care for our happiness. — But, 
secondly, we must seek to love Him in all evil 
things, regarding them as fatherly chastisements, 
designed for our prolit, to make us jDartakers 



266 SEVENTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY. 

of His holiness; and saying of them all, " Shall 
we receive good at the hand of God, and shall 
we not receive evil ? " By taking this view both 
of the good and evil of our lot, we shall at once 
avoid the tendency to make idols of our bless- 
ings, thereby turning them into curses; and also, 
by a spiritual alchemy, which only God's tine 
children understand, transmute even the troubles 
and sorrows of His sending into joy. 



W^t $e&nttlj ijjuntiaj) after SEtmitg* 

hord of all power and might, who art the author and 
giver of all good things; Graft in our hearts the love 
of thy Naine, increase in us true religion, nourish 
us with all goodness, and of thy great mercy keep us 
in the same; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. 

Deus virtutum, cujus est totum quod est optimum: insere 
jjecioribus nostris amorem tui noniinis; et prcesta in 
nobis religionis augmentum, ut quce sunt bona nu- 
trias, acpietatis studio quce sunt nutrita custodias. 
Per Dominum. (Gel, Sac, Miss. Sab.) 

CEANMER'S rendering of the invocation of 
this Collect is rather a paraphrase than 
a translation. But it is a haj)py paraphrase, con- 
veying more to English ears than a translation 
would have done. As it stands in the original 
Latin, the invocation runs thus: "O God of hosts, 
to whom belongeth everything that is most ex- 
cellent." "Deus virtutum," the invocation of the 
Latin Collect, is the usual rendering in the Latin 



SEVENTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY. 267 

Vulgate (which is the authorized version of the 
Scriptures in the Roman, as it was in the medi- 
seval, Church) of the well-known Scriptural phrase, 
so common in the Psalms, "God of hosts," which 
is tantamount to the God of all forces in heaven 
and earth, or, if you please, "the Lord of all 
might." But Cranmer has expanded this mag- 
nificent designation, and given it rather a fuller 
scope. He has added " power " to " might," — 
"Lord of all poifer and might." What is power, 
as distinct from might (for if j'ou wish to under- 
stand your Bible and Prayer Book, 3'ou must 
never supj)ose that two words are used with ex- 
actly the same meaning, where one would have 
conveyed all that is intended) ? " Power " is au- 
thority; "might" is force. There may be might 
without authority; and there may be authority 
without might. — " Who art the author and giver 
of all good things," is surely better, fuller, more 
forcible, that the Latin, — "to whom belongeth 
everything that is most excellent." The trans- 
lation points, not merely to ownership on the 
part of God, but also to authorship and munifi- 
cence — " the author " (originator) " and giver of 
aU good things." 

The literal translation of the remainder of the 
Collect would run as foUows: — "Graft in our 
breasts the love of thy name, and sujjply in us 
an increase of rehgion, nourishing those things 
that be good, and with fatherly soHcitude" {pietatis 
studio) "keeping (or guarding) what has been 
nourished." The Latin indicates, what it is dif- 



268 SEVENTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY. 

ficult to express in a translation, that the increase 
of religion in ns can only be brought about by 
two processes — one, God's nurturing what He 
has implanted, the other. His guarding and keep- 
ing what He has nurtured. The translation is on 
the whole excellent; but "of thy great mercy" is 
rather tame and pointless in comparison of pietatis 
studio — with the solicitude of fatherly affection. 

" Graft " (or implant) " in our hearts the love 
of thy name." What an implication that this 
love is not there originally! what a testimony 
to the corruption of our nature; for, if it lacks 
the love of God, it must be corrupt! But do 
not pass over the speciality of the phrase, " love 
of thy Name." Our love for God must be a de- 
liberate and settled esteem, founded upon our 
sense of the excellence of His character; it must 
be a love of "His name." Nor is it loving Him 
truly to feel the attractiveness of certain parts of 
His Name, while we are averse to other parts. 
Those only love Him, as He- wills to be loved, 
who love the sterner as well as the milder fea- 
tures of His character, — who not only appreciate 
His mercy, graciousness, fatherly kindness, but 
esteem also His holiness, justice, and truth, and 
feel that these attributes are no less essential 
than the others to the perfectness of His charac- 
ter, and the symmetry of His Name. 

"Increase in us true religion." Observe the 
practical character of this j)etition. Love is a 
sentiment. But sentiments are not enough in 
the service of God. "We must not rest in sen- 



SEVENTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY. 269 

timents. What has to be increased in us is " true 
religion," that is, fruits of love and works of love. 
The word " religion," which is of the rarest oc- 
currence in our Authorized Version of the Bible, 
means, according to its etymology, an obligation, 
— something which binds us. Now what is it 
which in the service of God binds us? Surely 
His law, which we are to keep out of love and 
hi the strength of love. "Pure religion and un- 
defiled before God and the Father is this, To 
visit the fatherless and widows in theu' affliction, 
and to kee^D himself unspotted from the world." 
"Increase in us true rehgion," then, is equivalent 
to "Increase in us self-restraint, sympathy-, un- 
w^orldliness, purity." But this increase can only 
be by grace. And at every step in it, grace 
must guard it, must enable us to preserve our 
gains, and to maintain our ground. And in the 
Collect we have both the nurturing and the keep- 
ing; "nourish us with all goodness," or (as it 
was in the original Latin), "nourish those things 
that be good in us " (this is the nurture), " and 
of thy great mercy keep us in the same," or (bet- 
ter, and more faithfully to the original) " with 
fatherly solicitude keep what thou has nurtured " 
(here is the guardianship). The thought is, that 
with all the affection of a parent He will watch 
over the life which He has implanted, and shield 
it from harm, and take care that ground gained 
one day shall not be lost the next. And, if we 
will but co-operate with Him in this guardian- 
ship, all is secure. Therefore "watch and pray." 



270 EIGHTH SUNDA Y AFTER TRINITY. 



W^z 1£ifl|)tfj $untJas after Ermttg> 

God, whose never-failing providence ordereili all 
things both in heaven and earth; We humbly be- 
seech thee to put away from us all hurtful things, 
and to give us those things which are profitable for 
us; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. 

Deus, cujus pirovidentia in sui dispositione nonfallitur, 
te suppUces exoramus, ut noxia cuncta submoveas et 
omnia nobis profuiura concedas. Per Dominum. 
(Gel. Sac, Miss. Sae.) 

IN the Collect now before us, it is not the 
translator, but Bishop Oosin, the reviser, 
who has paraphrased very felicitously the orig- 
inal Latin of the earlier part. The literal trans- 
lation of that part is, 'God, whose Providence, 
in ordering that which is His own, is not dr 
ceived (or mistaken)." The translator of 1549 
left out altogether the clause, " in ordering that 
which is His own," and rendered the invocation 
thus: "God whose providence is never deceived; " 
thus droj)j)ing altogether the idea of God's con- 
trol over events, and retaining only the idea of 
His providence or foresight of them. And thus the 
Collect stood in the two Prayer Books of Ed- 
ward VI., and in that of Elizabeth. In 1661 
Bishop Cosin saw what a mistake had been made 
in dropping the idea of God's control. He would 
rather have that to be the prominent idea of the 
clause. So he placed this idea in the direct 
sentence, and expressed incidentally, by the epi- 



EIGHTH SUNDA V AFTER TRINITY. 271 

thet "never-failing," the idea of God's Provi- 
dence never being mistaken in its calculations, 
whicli had occupied the direct sentence in the 
original Latin. Moreover, he inserted the words, 
" all things in heaven and earth," which proba- 
bly he meant to correspond to, and to be a fuller 
expression of, "that which is His own." 

The latter part of the Collect might be rendered 
more exactly thus: "We implore thee as suppli- 
ants that thou wouldst remove out of our way 
ever\i:hing hurtful, and grant unto us all things 
which will do us good." The word which I have 
represented by " we implore," is a strong one, 
denoting such fervor and earnestness as carries 
its point. 

The great idea, which the whole prayer puts be- 
fore us, is this, that we are journe^dng (or making 
a progress) through life; that in this progress 
we know not what may befall us, and that, if we 
attempted to conjecture our future, we might 
grievously err in our calculations; that, even if 
we knew what might befall us, we might have no 
control over it, so as to avert what was really 
eviL Feeling, therefore, utterly blind and pow- 
erless as to our future career, we throw ourselves 
down before God's footstool whose providence or 
foresight is infinite, and beseech Him that He 
would summarily remove out of our path all 
such impediments as really block our progress 
to the heavenly Canaan, and give us one after 
another all such things as may really fui'ther us 
on our road thither. 



272 EIGHTH SUNDA V AFTER TRINITY. 

It is really a very noble paraphrase, this opening 
clause, as Cosin has left it to us: " O G-od, whose 
never-failing ^^rovidence ordereth all things both 
in heaven and earth." Grod's Providence orders 
"all things in heaven," no less than in "earth." 
Well is it that this particular district of God's 
administration should be alluded to in the trans- 
lation, though there is no sort of reference to it 
in the original Collect. I do not suppose the 
" heaven " here mentioned to be the natural fir- 
mament, the sphere of the sun, moon, and stars. 
There it is the God of Nature who works, rather 
than the God of Providence. Kather, the heaven 
here aUuded to is the abode of rational and moral 
creatures, the sphere of the angels, of which 
sphere Nebuchadnezzar speaks, when his under- 
standing returned unto him: "And aU the in- 
habitants of the earth are reputed as nothing: 
and He doeth according to His will in the army 
of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth: 
and none can stay His hand, or say unto Him, 
"What doest thou?" 

And in earth, too, God's Providence " never 
fails," — nay, in the minutest of earth's affairs, it 
still " ordereth all things." In human legislation 
very smaU matters are avowedly not taken into 
account. There is a proverb respecting human 
law, that it does not concern itself with little tri- 
fles (" de minimis non curat lex"). But God's 
greatness is shown by His condescending to the 
humblest, as well as by His controlling the lofti- 
est, circumstances. " Are not two sparrows sold 



EIGHTH SUNDA V AFTER TRINITY. 273 

for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on 
the ground without your Father?" God must 
sign the death-warrant of the meanest animal, 
before death can befall it. How much more, 
then, must we suppose Him to superintend with 
fatherly solicitude such circumstances as may 
help or hinder human souls — in a word, the af- 
fairs of men ! 

The Divine foresight and power of control, 
which form the doctrine of the Collect, are sued 
for to be exerted on behalf of ourselves in its 
jjetUion. "We pra}^ God that, as He foresees 
what things will haj^pen to us, and what effect 
they will have upon our character, and as He also 
has a power of controlling all events, He will put 
away from us, not indeed all things painful, but 
"all things that may hurt us," and give us, not 
indeed only things which are pleasurable, but 
" those things which are profitable for us." Is it 
not the case that the thorns, with which God has 
planted life in the world, — its uneasinesses, its 
crosses, and the unsatisfying and fleeting char- 
acter of the best happiness it has to offer, — make 
the true Christian anticipate with greater long- 
ing, and pursue with more fervent desire, the 
Paradise-rest and the heavenly inheritance, and 
thus prove "profitable" to him, by ci[uickening 
faith and hope ? 



274 NINTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY. 



3Cf)e Wrntf) Sitntiag after STrtuftg* 

Grant to us, Lord, loe beseech thee, the spirit to think 
and do always such things as are right; that we, who 
cannot do any thing that is good without thee, may 
by thee be enabled to live according to thy will; through 
Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. 

Largire nobis, qucesumus, Domine, semper spirituin 
cogitandi quoe recta sunt, propitius et agendi; ut qui 
sine te esse oion possicmus, secundum ie vivere va- 
leamus. Per. (Leo. Sac, Miss. Sak.) 

THE earlier part of this Collect is a faithful 
translation of the Latin original, in Leo's 
Sacramentary, but its latter part has been altered 
slightly by the translator, more materially by 
Bishop Cosin. Quite literally rendered, it run ) 
thus: " That we, who cannot he luithoiU thee, may 
be able to live according to thee." And the first 
part of this aspiration ("that we, who cannot be 
without thee") stood in this form in the two 
Prayer Books of King Edward YL, and in that 
of Queen Elizabeth. At the Revision of 1661 
Cosin, thinking probably that "cannot be" was 
not very intelligible, substituted for it, " cannot 
do anything that is good." Cranmer, in the or- 
iginal translation, had substituted for "may be 
able to live according to thee," "may by thee be 
able to live according to thy will." The onty 
alteration which Cosin made in this part was 
to write " enabled " for " able." 

" That we, who cannot even exist without thee, 



NINTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY. 275 

may have strength to live according to thee," — 
such is the full force of the original. "Exist- 
ing " and " living " are put in opposition to one 
another: to live in communion with thee, and 
after the model of thy life, — all this is implied 
in the phrase, "live according to thee" Without 
God we are nothing; without Him we should sink 
into the abyss of annihilation, from which His 
creative power drew us; for "in Him," says the 
ScrijDture, "we live, and move, and have our 
being."' The phrase "to live according to God" 
is adojDted fi'om the New Testament. We find 
it in St. Peter's Ej)istles, — " that they might live 

according to God in the spirit." " To hve," . - 

fore, in the original Latin of the Collect, does not 
mean "to conduct oneself." The life spoken of 
is the hfe of man's sph'it, when quickened by the 
Hoty Sj^irit. And this life is " according to God," 
— not according to the will of God, though that 
of course is implied and involved, but " accord- 
ing to God." He is the model, the source, the 
regulating principle of it. The phrase is most 
strictly Scriptural, although our translators, fear- 
ing that it might not be understood, have ex- 
pressed it in a paraphrase. 

Now, how is this life in God, and according to 
God, of those who are so dependent upon Him 
that without Him they cannot even exist, to be 
brought about? By His beuntifully giving to 
them (" Largire, nobis, Domine ") the spirit of 
thinking those things that be rightful, and, more- 
over, of promptly doing the same. The order 



276 NINTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY. 

of the words in the original Latin makes a break 
between the thinking and the doing, which is 
very suggestive and significant. Good thoughts 
are by no means always followed by good actions. 
Nay, the thought may go beyond a thought, may 
even pass into a purpose or resolution, without 
taking any effect outwardly, just as a tree may 
sprout, may even blossom, and yet bring no 
fruit to perfection. How many a man has been 
touched by some appeal made in a Charity Ser- 
mon, and has only postponed giving under the 
genuine feeling that he had too little money 
about him on the spot, to meet with adequate 
generosity claims which have been so forcibly 
urged; and then has gone awa}^ and on Mon- 
day has been absorbed again into the vortex of 
this world's business and cares, and the appeal, 
when that first warm gush of good emotion has 
quite subsided, has appeared in very sober colors, 
compared with those in which the preacher's dis- 
course had invested it, and in a few days it has 
quite passed out of mind, has dropped into the 
limbo of good intentions unfulfilled. It was a 
beautiful prayer of Bishop Andrewes, that we 
may be enabled "to hurif evil thoughts with good 
works." "When assaulted by such thoughts, turn 
thyself to prayer, or to the study of God's Word, 
or to any useful employment of the mind. 

Summarily, the three distinct points of the 
Collect in the original Latin, are. 1. The Chris- 
tian not able even to exist without God. "In 
thee we have our being." 2. The Christian 



TENTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY. 277 

largely endoAved by God TA'ith the spirit to think 
what is rightful, and to consummate it in action. 
3. The Christian thus gradually " created after 
God in righteousness and true holiness," and 
living the s^^iritual life, of which God is the 
model and the source. 



Wi)t Eeutl} Suntiag after Erinitg. 

hei thy merciful ears, Lord, he open to the prayers 
of thy huvible servants; and that they may obtain 
their petitions make them to ask such things as shall 
please thee; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. 

Pateant aures misericordice tuce, Domine, precihus 
supplicantium; el 2(t petentibus desiderata concedas, 
fac eos quce tibi jylctcita sunt posiulare. Per Dmni- 
num nostrum. (Leo. Sac, Miss. Sak.) 

THIS Collect is derived from the earliest of 
the Sacramentaries, that of Leo the Great, 
whose Pontificate lasted from a. d. 440 to a. d. 
461. Gelasius, his successor in the Bishopric of 
Rome, found time during his short Pontificate 
of four years, to revise and make a digest of the 
praj'ers in Leo's Sacramentary. He re- wrote this 
Collect, j^i'eserving the sentiment, but altering 
the expression. In the opening of our English 
version, Cranmer has adopted Gelasius's wording 
in preference to Leo's; but in what follows, he 
has fallen back on the original. 

"Let thy merciful ears, O Lord" — hterally, 



278 TENTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY. 

" tlie ears of thy mercj." God's justice has ears 
as well as His mercy, aud the cry of human 
wickedness, coming up into those ears, calls 
down Yengeance. It is the blood of Jesus that 
closes the ear of justice, and opens that of mercy, 
so that our prayer, offered in the faith of His 
name, finds immediate entrance and a prompt 
response. 

"Let thy merciful ears be open to the prayers 
of thy humble servants." Cranmer has done well 
in drawing out fully and distinctly the thought 
of humility in the petitioners, which is latent and 
undeyeloped in the Collects of Leo and Gelasius, 
indicated only by the word suppliants. It is said 
in the Psalms (and, as St. Peter quotes the pass- 
age at length, it may be said to be one of those 
Old Testament texts which the Hoty Ghost, who 
first inspired them, specially recommends to our 
notice), " The eyes of the Lord are upon the 
righteous, and His ears are open unto their cry." 
"Lord, thou hast heard the desire of the humbler 
thou wilt prepare their heart, thou wilt cause 
thine ear to hear." "What are we to gather from 
the circumstance that in one passage God's ears 
are said to be open to the prayers of the righteous, 
and in others to the prayers of the humble f That 
by the righteous are meant not those who en- 
deavor to stand before God on any independent 
ground of merit in themselves, but those rather 
who, in despair of self, throw themselves upon 
His pardoning mercy in Christ, and thus sub- 
mitting themselves to what the Apostle calls 



TENTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY. 279 

"God's righteousness," — are justified by faith. 
The very first foundations of the Christian's 
righteousness are laid in that humble petition, 
" God be merciful to me a sinner." Yet, on the 
other hand, notice the word " servants," as con- 
tributing another factor to the idea of the char- 
acter of those whom God listens to. His ears 
are not open to the servants of sin and of the 
world, but to those who in the main tenor of 
their lives are His servants, having become so 
by willing self-dedication, yielding themselves 
" unto God, as those that are alive from the 
dead, and " their " members as instruments of 
righteousness unto God." 

"And that they may obtain their petitions 
make them to ask such things as shall please 
thee." This is not to be understood as a mere 
repetition in another form of the earlier clause. 
The later clause makes a great advance uj)on 
the earlier. God's ears may be open to a prayer, 
and yet the prayer may not be granted. As a 
fact, whenever a prayer is breathed to heaven 
from the humble heart of one who is sincerely 
endeavoring to serve God, it is always heard, — 
the ears of Divine Mercy are open to it; but it 
does not follow that it is granted. Those petitions 
only do we succeed in obtaining, Avhich we " faith- 
fully " ask " according to " His " will." Now there 
are certain petitions which must be j^leasing to 
God, which cannot fail to be in accordance with 
His will. All petitions for the advancement of 
His own cause, for the extension of His kingdom, 



280 TENTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY. 

and the glory of His name — the petitions which 
form the first section of the Lord's Prayer — can- 
not fail to please Him. These petitions, if sin- 
cere, are the utterances of Divine love in the 
heart. Whatever is directly or indirectly con- 
ducive to our own salvation, or that of others, 
must be pleasing to God. And in asking such 
things, therefore, we should have confidence in 
their being granted, and believe firmly that we 
receive them, as the beloved disciple intimates: 
" This is the confidence that we have in Him, that, 
if we ask anything according to His will, He hear- 
eth us" ("hearing" us in this passage involves, 
as the sequel shows, the granting what we ask 
for). But God's servants, in virtue of the con- 
stitution of their nature, seek other things be- 
. sides the advancement of God's cause, and their 
own highest good and ultimate blessedness. We 
wish for health, resources, a competence, sympa- 
thy, to have our friends around us and keep them 
with us, to have success in our pursuit, to live as 
long as we can really enjoy life. There is noth- 
ing wrong in the mere desire for such things, 
if it is subordinated to higher aspirations. We 
are not only encouraged, but bidden, to lay all 
our innocent desires under God's eye, to com- 
mend them to Him in prayer. " Be careful for 
nothing," says St. Paul; "but in everything by 
prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let 
your requests be made known unto God." That 
the heavenly King has held out to us the golden 
sceptre of acceptance is enough; He does not 



ELEVENTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY. 281 

say to us, as Ahasuerus to Esther, " AVbat is thy 
request? It shall be even given thee." For He 
"who reads both the heart and the future might 
jDerchance see that the temporal boon which we 
covet would be fraught with deadly mischief to 
our higher interests, or even perhaps come into 
collision with our earthly welfare in a circuitous 
way. "We ask, absolutely and unconditionally, 
therefore, only for such things as we know can- 
not fail to please God — only for the fulfilment 
of such desires as spring from the love of Him, 
or from rational self-love. All other desires, while 
we refer them to Him, we leave in His hands, 
with this proviso annexed to our prayer, "if it 
be for thy glory and my good." • 



®i)e 3Elebent|j Suntrag after Erinttg. 

God, who dedaresi thy almighty 'power chiefly in show- 
ing mercy and pity; Mercifully grant unto us such 
a measwe of thy grace, that ice, running the way of 
thy commandments, may obtain thy gracious prom- 
ises, and he made partakers of thy heavenly treas- 
ure; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. 

Deus, qui omnipotentiam tuam parcendo m,axime et 
miserando manifestas: m,ultiplica. super nos gratiam 
tuam, ut ad tua promissa currentes, coelesilnm bono- 
rum facias esse consortes. Per Dominum. (GeL. 
Sac, Miss. Sak.) 

THIS Collect, derived from the Sacramentary 
of Gelasius, was in the first instance trans- 
lated quite literally by our Reformers. At the 



282 ELEVENTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY. 

last Revision Bishop Cosin added a few words 
to tlie petition, so as to introduce a reference to 
God's commandments, wliicli had not found place 
there previously. The effect of this very judicious 
addition was to make the prayer fuller and richer 
in meaning than perhaps any other of our Col- 
lects, characterized as all of them are by compre- 
hensiveness of idea. 

" O God, who declarest thy almighty power 
chiefly in showing mercy and pity." In the 
original Latin it is, " in sparing and compassion- 
ating." " Showing mercy and pity " fastens the 
mind on God's action towards the sinner rather 
than on His sentiment. Yet even here there is a 
distinction; the two words "mercy" and ''pity" 
do not represent exactly the same idea. God's 
mercy moves Him to pardon sinners; His pity 
moves Him to help them; and thus an interest- 
ing connection is established with the petition, 
in which both mercy and grace are sued for: 
"■Mercifully grant unto us such a measure of thy 
grace." 

How are we to understand this at first sight 
perplexing assertion, that God's almighty power 
is most chiefly declared in showing mercy and 
pity? We shall find the explanation in this very 
awful and yet edifying thought, which lies at the 
foundation of Gospel- truth, that sin jyresents a real 
dificuUy to God.— the greatest of all difficulties — and 
that, therefore, the overcoming of this difficulty is the 
chiefest and most signal display of the Divine power, 
because the greater the difficulty, the greater demand 



ELEVENTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY. 283 

does it make on God's power to overcome it. Sin is 
the transgression of God's moral law. We know 
what God's natural laws are, and we know that 
He never allows us to break them with impunitj-. 
We cannot break God's sanitary laws without 
suffering for it; we cannot live in foul air and 
drink contaminated water, and inhale infected 
ah', and yet retain our health. Now, God's 
moral laws, seeing that they are laid on rational 
and accountable creatures, creatures w^ho have a 
free will and are capable of obeying or disobey- 
ing them, must be much more serious and awful 
things than His natural laws, which are mere ar- 
rangements made in regard to matter, or in re- 
gard to irrational animals. A.nd therefore the 
consequences of breaking them must be propor- 
tionably grave, and the providing of a remedy for 
breaking them must be proportionably difficult. 

But alas ! how different is this view of sin and 
its remedy from that which we naturally take, 
which (it may be) some of my readers are taking 
at present. Nothing is easier, it seems to us, 
nothing more simple, and natural, and obvious, 
and in the ordinary course of things, than that 
God, as our loving Father, should forgive sins. 

If a very large steam-engine is constructed of 
several thousand horse-power, who could beheve 
that it is designed merely to pluck up a weed or 
tear off the branch of a tree ? Who does not im- 
mediately conclude that, in the work which that 
engine has to do, there is some tremendous force 
to be overcome, which could only be overcome by 



284 ELEVENTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY. 

the power of several thousand horses ? If it is an 
instinct of my reason to argue thus, can I possibly 
suppose that the blood of the Son of God would 
have been shed, if it had not needed to be shed ? 
I hear Jesus in the garden cry, "Father, if it he 
possible, let this cup pass from me." Can I sup- 
pose that, if it hadj been possible, consistently with 
the end of man's salvation, which He came into 
the world to work out, the cup would not liaA^e 
been withdrawn from His lips? If so, it was 
necessary in the nature of things (how neces- 
sary, or why necessary, I may not be able to see) 
that Christ's blood should have been shed, and 
His Spirit poured out, in order that a blow might 
be struck at sin in its guilt and power. And 
therefore, since Christ and the Spirit are Divine, 
the striking of this blow demanded all the force 
of an Almighty arm. And thus the "showing- 
mercy and pity" to sinners is the chiefest (or 
most eminent) declaration of God's " almighty 
power." , 

I. *' Mercifully grant unto us such a measure 
of thy grace, that." This is one of the cases, of 
which so many occur in our Authorized Version 
of the Scriptures, in which the translators have 
rendered by a different English phrase words 
which in the original are the same. The peti- 
tion of the Collect for the Fourth Sunday after 
Trinity is: "Increase and multiply upon us thy 
mercy." The Latin words here are the same, — 
"Multiplica super nos;" and, if the translators 
had rendered them here in the same manner 



ELEVENTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY. 285 

as they have done there, we should have had, 
" Increase and multiply upon us thy grace." 
This thought of the increase and multiplication 
of grace harmonizes very well with the teaching 
of the Epistle, in which St. Paul speaks of his 
persecutions of the Church before he became an 
Apostle, and alludes to the exceedingly abundant 
grace, and the wonderful long-suffering, which 
were shown in his conversion. And it harmonizes 
equally weU with the teaching of the Gospel, where 
the publican, though devoid of all legal right- 
eousness, receives a large shower of mercy in 
answer to the simple prayer, " God be merciful 
to me a sinner." We need not grace only, but 
grace in a measure suited to our needs, a larger 
grace, therefore, if our difficulties are great and 
our temptations strong ; and that this larger meas- 
ure of grace is only to be obtained by a larger 
measure of faith, faith being nothing else than 
the receptivity of the heart — its capacity for re- 
ceiving God's blessings; so that the man whose 
faith is larger, receiA^es a larger blessing from 
God, simply because there is more room in his 
heart, and therefore a stronger craving. " Grant 
unto us 'iucli a measure of thy grace." 

" That we, running the way of thy command- 
ments, may obtain thy gracious j)romises." Or- 
iginally the petition was briefer : " Give unto us 
abundantly thy grace, that we, running to thy 
promises, may be made partakers of thy heavenly 
treasure." But Cosin did a good work for the 
old Latin Prayer in importing into it an explicit 



286 ELEVENTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY. 

reference (wliicli indeed was latent there pre- 
viousty) to God's commandments. These com- 
mandments are the race-course, at the end of 
which stands the winning-post, and by it the 
arbiter with the garland in his hand. What 
chance would a runner have of winning a race, 
if he is not upon the course, if he is outside the 
barrier which parts the competitors from the 
spectators? The heart must first be expanded 
with a sense of freedom and joy — freedom from 
the law as a covenant of works, joy in the atone- 
ment of Christ and in the consciousness of our 
acceptance through Him — before we can even imlk 
in the way of God's commandments, much more 
before we can run with alacrity and zeal therein. 
"And be made jDartakers of thy heavenly 
treasure." "Partakers" hardly gives the full 
force of the original word, which is rather 
"joint-partakers," "fellow-partakers." The idea 
is that which is given by Eom. viii. 17, "We 
are the children of God: and if children, then 
heirs; heirs of God, and Jom^-AeiVs with Christ." 
" Heavenly good things " it is in the original, even 
" such good things," according to the phrase- 
ology of the Collect for the Sixth Sunday after 
Trinity, " as j)^ss man's understanding." But 
"heavenly treasure" is certainly an improvement 
upon the original phrase. The idea of treasure 
is less vague and more definite than that of 
"good things"; it suggests gold and silver, 
jewels, fine raiment, and other valuables. And 
it refers us, too, to that precept of our Lord's, 



TWELFTH SUNDA Y AFTER TRINITY. 287 

"Lay up for j'ourselves treasures in heaven, where 
neither moth nor rust doth corruj)t, and where 
thieves do not break through nor steal, "-thus re- 
minding us that, though on the one hand the 
inheritance of the treasure is all of grace, not 
of debt, yet on the other hand there is a sense 
in vrhich we ourselves must "lay it up," and 
make sacrifices for the attainment of it. The 
heavenly treasure is not anything external to 
us; it is that increased and increasing appre- 
ciation of God's perfections — of His wdsdom, 
130 wer, and love — which fills the heart with joy 
and peace, and in which communion with Him 
consists. 



W^z STtoelftlj SuntJag after Crinitg^ 

Almighty and everlasting God, who art always more 
ready to hear than ire to pray, and art wont to give 
more than either we desire or deserve; Pour down 
upon ns the abundance of thy mercy, forgiving us 
those things whereof our conscience is afraid, and 
giving its those good things which ice are not worthy 
to ask, but through the merits and mediation of Jesus 
Christ, thy Son, our Lord. Amen. 

Omnipotens sempiteriie Deus, qui abundantia pnetatis 
tucE etmerita supplicum excedis et vota, effunde super 
nos miser icordi am tuam, ut dimittas quce conscientia 
metuit, et adjicias quod oratio non prcesumit. Per 
Dominum. (Gel. Sac, Miss. Sah.) 

THIS Collect passed through several hands 
before it reached its present form. The 
first draft of it is found in the earliest of the 



288 TWELFTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY. 

Sacramentaries, that of Leo. Gelasius, without 
materially altering the sentiment, recast the lan- 
guage, and expanded it a little at the end. Cran- 
mer inserted in the earlier part a clause which 
w^as not there before. Cosin finally threw the 
conclusion into a slightly different form, which, 
while it improved the rhythm, gave rather more 
prominence to the idea that it is only through 
our Lord's mediation that we can dare to hope 
for the outflow of God's goodness towards us. 

As Gelasius left the Collect, it opened thus: — 
"Almighty God, who in the abundance of thy 
fatherly compassion dost surpass both the de- 
sires and deserts of those who pray to thee." 
Cranmer dropped the expression " in the abun- 
dance of thy fatherly compassion," and substi- 
tuted for it this definite statement of the way in 
which God's fatherly compassion manifests itself, 
" who art alwaj^s more ready to hear than we to 
pray." "And it shall came to pass, that before 
they call, I will answer; and while they are yet 
speaking, I will hear." In which most gracious 
words God pledges Himself to promptitude in 
hearing His suppliants. If actual human expe- 
rience is needed to confirm this truth of God's 
readiness to hear prayer, we have among many 
other Scriptural instances the case of Daniel. 
"At the beginning of thy supplications," says 
the angel to him, after he had presented his 
supplication before the Lord for Jerusalem, 
"the commandment came forth, and I am 
come to show thee; for thou art greatly be- 



TWELFTH SUNDA V AFTER TRINITY. 289 

loved." And the circumstance is emphasized 
that, as soon as ever God saw Daniel's purjoose 
of seeking insight into the future by prayer and 
humiliation, his petition was acceded to, though 
not yet actually preferred, "Fear not, Daniel; for 
from the first day that thou didst set thine heart 
to understand, and to chasten thyself before thy 
God, thy words were heard, and I am come for 
thy words." And if, with the ingenuity of a self- 
condemning and, therefore, a mistrustful heart, 
it should be alleged that to those who are " greatly 
beloved" God does indeed show Himself more 
ready to hear than the}^ to pray; but that with 
those whose lives have been spent in alienation 
from Him, and with whom prayer is not their 
habitual practice, but merely a ciy wrung out 
from them by the cravings of a heart which the 
world has failed to satisfv% He deals by another 
and sterner rule, — we then fall back upon the 
parable of the Prodigal, and ask whether God's 
promptitude in responding to a cry of forgive- 
ness from one who has been long living at a dis- 
tance from Him could possibly be represented 
in stronger or more vivid colors. Had the prod- 
igal son been a Daniel, his cry could not have 
been responded to with greater alacrit}^ 

"And art wont " (accustomed) " to give more than 
either we desire or deserve." The word "desire " 
here means, as the Latin both of the Leonine 
and the Gelasian Collects evidently shows, not 
"to wish for," but "to ask for." God is accus- 
tomed to give to His petitioners more than either 



290 TWELFTH SUNDA V AFTER TRINITY. 

they request Him to give, or deserve that He 
should give. The well-known history of Solo- 
mon furnishes, perhaps, the best example of this. 
And, turning to the New Testament, we find the 
prodigal petitioning only for a place among the 
hired servants, but receiving a welcome even 
more than filial. The lesson is that no one ever 
thus threw himself upon our Heavenly Father, 
without ex23eriencing the truth of those gracious 
promises: "Let him return to our God, for He 
will abundantly pardon; " " Let Israel hope in the 
Lord: for with the Lord there is mercy, and 
with Him i^ plenteous redemption." 

And let the word " wont " be weighed, and its 
full force given to it. This abundant response 
to prayer, this pouring out of a blessing upon 
the petitioner, so that he has not room to receive 
it, is not an exceptional favor granted to pecu- 
liarly qualified persons, — it is God's icont, His 
normal method of acting with all petitioners. 

"Pour down upon us the abundance of thy 
mercy" (as a copious shower saturating the soil 
of the heart). 

" Forgiving us those things whereof our con- 
science is afraid." What makes us hesitate in 
our approaches to God, what constitutes our un- 
readiness, is our sense of guilt. St. John, in a 
remarkable passage of his first Epistle, speaks of 
" assuring our hearts before God." But " if our 
heart condemn us," if conscience bear an unfa- 
vorable testimony, when we are approaching the 
throne of grace — what then? The Apostle says 



TWELFTH SUNDA V AFTER TRINITY. 291 

(for so bis words should be rendered), "this is be- 
cause God is greater than our hearts and know- 
eth all things," i. e., the verdict of our conscience 
derives all its force from God's omniscience; in 
which words he represents to us the seriousness 
of the verdicts of conscience, not the remedy 
for them in case ihej are against us. What is 
the remedy ? First, of course, the blood of Christ. 
' How much more shall the blood of Christ, who 
through the eternal Spirit offered Himself with- 
out spot to God, purge your conscience from 
dead works to serve the living God ? " And, 
' Let us draw near with a true heart in full as- 
surance of faith " (observe that both St. John and 
the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews make 
this full assurance of the heart essential to the 
success of the application), " having our hearts 
sprinkled from an evil conscience " (with the 
blood of Christ), " and our bodies washed w4th 
pure water " (here is the Baptismal relationship 
adduced as a ground of confidence in prayer). 
And anything more? Yes; if the assurance is to 
be complete and unwavering there must not only 
be the Spirit's testimony of the cleansing blood 
of Christ and the Church's (or bride's) testimony 
of the Baptismal relationshijD, but the testimony of 
our own conscience that we are akin to Him who 
is Love, because we do deeds of love in the spirit 
of love. With this assurance arising from three 
sources, which we may call summarily " the Spirit, 
and the water, and the blood " — the Spirit in the 
conscience, the water of Baptism, the blood of 



292 THIRTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY. 

tlie Cross — we shall touch easily the spring of 
God's bounty, and draw forth from Him " those 
good things which we are not worthy to ask, but 
through the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ," 
— nay, our minds being thus in perfect accordance 
with His, we shall draw forth whatever we will : 
— " Whatsoever we ask, we receive of Him, be- 
cause we keep His commandments, and do those 
things that are pleasing in His sight." 



®f)e ®I}trteent{) Simtiag after Ermitg* 



Almighty and merciful God, of u'Jiose only gift it cometh 
tliat thy faithful people do unto thee true andlauddble 
service; Grant, ice beseech thee, that ice may sofaith- 
fidly serve thee in this life, that we fail not finally to 
attain thy heavenly promises; through the wieriis of 
Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. 

Omnipoiens et misericors Deus, de cujus munere venit 
ut tihi afidelihus iuis digne ei laudabiliter serviatur; 
tribue nobis, qucesumus, id ad p'romissiones tuas 
sine offensione curramus. Per Dominwji. (Leo 
Sac, Miss. Sab.) 



I^HIS Collect is derived from the Sacramen- 
tary of Leo. It underwent no material al- 
teration at the hand of the original translators; 
but in 1661 Bishop Cosin gave one of his happy 
touches to the petition of it, which made it co- 
here much better with the earlier and doctrinal 
part, and altered the usual ending, " through Je- 



THIRTEENTH SUNDA V AFTER TRINITY. 293 

3US Christ our Lord," by inserting " the merits 
of" doubtless in order to remind us that the 
recompense of God's faithful servants is of grace, 
due to Christ's merits, not their own. 

It will greatly help to the understanding of 
this prayer if, before considering particular words 
and phrases, we gain a clear notion of the gen- 
eral subject of it, — the service of God, — " of whose 
only gift it cometh that thy j)eople do unto thee 

seTvice Grant, we beseech thee, that we 

may so faithfully serce thee." What then is God's 
service ? Our duty to Him ? Nay, not our whole 
duty, but only one third part of it. The explana- 
tion of the Lord's Praj'er given in the Catechism 
is very helpful to us on this point. We are there 
taught that, in the first three petitions of the 
Prayer, we " desire our Heavenly Father to send 
His grace unto all people that they ma}" w^ orship 
Him, serve Him, and obey Him, as the}" ought 
to do." First; "that they may icorsJvp Him." 
This is the petition, " Hallowed be thy name," 
in w^hich are comprised all the devotional exer- 
cises of the Christian life. Thirdl}"; "that they 
may obey Him," — allow" Him to carry the day in 
all things, wherein, through the sinfulness of our 
nature, there is a conflict between our will and 
His. This is, " Thy will be done," and in it is 
comprised the W'hole antagonism of the Christian 
to temptation. — But what is the second branch 
of our duty towards God, that branch of duty 
which the mere contemplative, the man who in- 
sists, as many members of monastic orders have 



294 THIRTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY. 

insisted, that the whole of life shall be given up 
to exercises of devotion, ignores, or at least throvrs 
into the background ? " That we should serviG Him 
as we ought to do." The words must be regarded 
as throwing into another shape the petition, " Thy 
kingdom come." The seat of God's kingdom is 
in heaven, where there is nothing but purity, and 
zeal, and love, and harmony, and a blessedness 
and joy filling all hearts till they overflow. But 
hke the sky which canopies us all, like the sun 
from the heat of whose quickening, cheering rays 
nothing is hid, this kingdom reaches to and en- 
folds the earth. The Samaritan, in the Gos]3el 
associated with this Collect, was truly serving 
God when he had compassion on the poor 
wounded traveller. It is bringing God's king- 
dom very near indeed to men, when, from a pure 
overflow of kindliness and love, one man soothes 
the sorrows of another, and sets him on his feet 
again by sympathy or succor, or both. Still the 
Samaritan's work of love was a by-work; it was 
not, as far as apj)ears, the main business of his 
life. Perhaps he was journeying on some mer- 
cantile business to Jericho; anyhow he came 
across the wounded man incidentallj^, as he 
was j)ursuing his own avocations. Whatever 
business may have fallen to us, we can do God 
service in it, by pursuing it in a devout and re- 
ligious spirit, by regarding it as a task al- 
lotted to us by Him, and in the conscientious 
discharge of which it is open to us to please 
Him. 



THIRTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY. 295 

Brie% the service of God consists in (1) the 
emplo3'ment of our talents for the good of our 
fellow-men, and thus for the furtherance of His 
cause and kingdom; and (2) in the doing o\xx 
work in life, whatever it be, with conscientious- 
ness and an aim to please Him. 

" Almight}' and merciful God. " The title " mer- 
ciful" as well as "almighty" stands with great 
propriet}^ in the forefront of a Collect, at the end 
of which the recompense awarded b}- God to 
faithful service is brought out in strong relief. 
"Grant that we may so faithfully serve . . . that 
we fail not finally to attain." But the attain- 
ment (if we make it), is all of grace, and not 
of debt. 

" Of whose only gift it cometh," — the Reformers 
added the " only," showing how jealous and how 
rightfull}' jealous they were of the doctrine that 
every good thing in man is wrought by the Holy 
Ghost, — " of whose only gift it cometh that thy 
faithful people do unto thee true and laudable 
service." In the Latin it is "worthy and laudable 
service." The word "laudable" means praise- 
worthy. The whole Collect is full of moral 
stimulus. The mere thought that it is open to 
us to do God service, that b}" a right intention 
and honest effort we may do something for His 
cause, this of itself is stimulating. And what 
shall we say to the doctrine, than which none 
can have a stronger Scriptural warrant, that by 
a certain line of sentiment and conduct we may 
gain God's praise ? " Then," says St. Paul, — at 



296 THIRTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY. 

the time of the Lord's Second Advent, — " shall 
every man have praise of God." And in the 
Parable of the Talents, the lord of the serv^ants, 
when he comes to reckon with them, passes a 
sentence of commendation upon those who had 
brought him the additional moneys which they 
had gained by trading; ''Well done, good and 
faithful servant." It is generally felt that the 
praise of those who are deservedly and univer- 
sally esteemed is a great stimulus. And the 
praise of God must be felt as a stimulus by 
those faithful servants who entertain towards 
Him a boundless and adoring veneration ! — And 
now, when we ask summarily what is " true, and 
worthy, and laudable service," the only answer 
which can be given is that God will, in His 
infinite mercy, esteem all service as such, which 
is "faithful." 

"That we may so faithfully serve thee in this 
life, that we fail not finally to attain thy heavenly 
promises." The balanced clauses, " in this life," 
and "heavenly," are both of them due to the 
translators. " This life " is the period of " ser- 
vice," as the " heavenly " kingdom is of recom- 
pense; "service" is the general characteristic 
of one, as recompense is of the other; though 
it is also true that the Christian has a foretaste 
even now of "heavenh'" joys, and that in all 
probabiht}^ (judging from what we know of the 
condition and occupations of angels), there will 
be a ministry and a "service" for him in another 
world. But the general contrast between the 



THIRTEENTH SUNDA Y AFTER TRINITY. 297 

life of service here below, and the life of enjoy- 
ment above, is warranted by our Lord's own 
teachino- in St. Luke xvii. 7. 8. The servant, 
bidden to gird himself, and wait upon his mas- 
ter, in the first instance, before he can be al- 
lowed to " eat and drink " himself, is evidently 
a parable of the earthly and heaventy states, the 
one toilsome and laborious, the other restful and 
refreshing. And now comes the final stimulat- 
ing thought, that there will be a proportion be- 
tween the service and the recompense. "That 
we may so faithfully . . . tliat we fail not." The 
servant whose pound had gained ten pounds was 
set over ten cities, he whose pound had gained 
five pounds over five only. Apostles, who " have 
borne the burden and heat of the day," will be 
set on twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes 
of Israel. But for lesser and lower services, lesser 
and lower recompenses will be given. And yet, 
even in the case of the Apostles, the talent or 
the pound, which they put out to interest in the 
Master's service, "came of His only gift;" they 
did but trade with money lent them. 



298 FOURTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY. 



SCfje jFourteent!} ^untrag after ?rrinitg* 

Almighty and everlasting God, give unto us the increase 
of faith, hope, and charity; and, that we may obtain 
that which thou dost promise, make us to love that 
which thou dost command; through Jesus Christ our 
Lord. Amen. 

Omnipotens sempiterne Deus, da nobis fidei, spei, et ca- 
o^itatis augmentum: et ut onereamur assequi quod 
promittis, fac nos amare quod prcecipis. Per Do- 
minum. (Leo Sac, INIiss. Sak.) 

THIS Collect is derived ultimately from the 
Sacramentary of Leo. Like all Collects of 
the earliest type, it is characterized at once by 
great brevity and great comprehensiveness. 

Its connection with the associated Epistle and 
Gospel is clearer, and more easily traced, than 
in many other instances. The prayer of the Col- 
lect is for an increase of faith, and also of hope 
and love, which are the fruits of faith. The Epis- 
tle enumerates these fruits, calling them the " fruit 
of the Spirit " (as being the results of His secret 
working in the hearts of the faithful), and names 
" love " (or charity) as the first of them. It is 
evident that, unless a thing exists, it cannot grow, 
and that to ask God to increase our faith, hope, 
and charity, where we have not these graces even 
in embryo, must be an awful mockery. 

The connection of the Collect with the Gos23el, 
which is the narrative of the cleansing of the 
ten lepers, is not so apparent, yet comes to light 



FOURTEENTH SUNDA Y AFTER TRINITY. 299 

on a very little reflection and study of the context. 
Just before the incident of the cleansing of the 
lepers, "the apostles said unto the Lord, Increase 
our faith." The Lord, as His manner was, gives 
them an oblique answer. He dwells upon the 
virtue, even of the tiniest grain of real faith, al- 
most as much as to say: "You ask for an increase 
of faith ; but know that a very little goes a long 
way in that matter." Shortly after occurred an 
incident which illustrated our Lord's teaching. 
The " ten men that were lepers " must have had 
a good measure of faith, that is, they must have 
believed in Christ's power and willingness to heal 
them, or they would not have cried in accents so 
loud as to attract His notice at a distance, " Je- 
sus, Master, have mercy on us." But their faith 
needed to grow, and, in order to its growth, it 
must be submitted to a trial. The trial was a 
command to do that which they must have 
known it was useless to do, unless they were 
first cleansed. 

But it is very observable how the latter clause 
of the Collect, " that we may obtain that which 
thou dost promise, make us to love that which thou 
dost command," glances at the order given to the 
lepers to go to the priests, just as its former clause, 
"Give unto us the increase," etc., glances back 
to the request which the disciples recently made 
to our Lord, "Increase our faith." In bidding 
the lepers show themselves to the j)i'iests, our 
Lord had led them to expect recovery, had vir- 
tually promised it to them. But in order to ob- 



300 FOURTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY. 

tain tliat wMch. He promised, they must first do, 
and do cheerfully, what He commanded. They 
did so, and in the act of doing so, the promise 
was fulfilled to them. 

But quite independently of any Scriptural pas- 
sage, and viewed merely as a prayer for Chris- 
tians of all ages, without any reference to inci- 
dents or conversations in the Gospels, the two 
petitions have a close connection, which deserves 
to be pointed out. "Almighty and everlasting- 
God, give unto us the increase of faith, hope, 
and charity " (the trinity of Christian graces). 
Faith, hope, and love (or charity) have a certain 
correspondence with the three divisions of time 
— past, present, and future. Faith, in one of its 
chief actings, looks back to the past. But faith 
also throws itself forward into the future, and, 
when it does so, it takes the complexion of the 
nearly allied grace of hope. But are we to live 
only in the memories of the past, and the anticipa- 
tions of the future ? Assuredly no. In order that 
those bright anticipations may be well founded, 
we must walk now in the way of God's command- 
ments. God indeed hath " chosen us to salva- 
tion;" but it is "through sanctification of the 
Spirit and belief of .the truth," — a living opera- 
tive behef that He has done so. And this sanc- 
tification and belief are evidenced (and can be 
evidenced) only by love. We shall never obtain 
that which God doth promise, unless we love 
that which He commands — not keep His com- 
mandments only, but ?oi;e them. It is quite pos- 



FOURTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY. 301 

sible to keep them externally by restraint upon 
the conduct, and yet to break them in the heart, 
because, though we fear the precept, we do not 
love it, and fervently wish it had been other than 
it is. The commandments, which God la3's upon 
us, are nothing else than the expression of His 
character and will towards us. And we do not 
love God Himself, except we love His character 
and will. The things which God commands — 
the expressions of His will towards us — are of 
two kinds. They are either commands in Reve- 
lation, which we have actively to execute, or or- 
derings in Providence, which we have to submit 
to. And the commands have to be executed, 
and the orderings submitted to, in love, — a love 
which is engendered by faith in what is past, and 
quickened by anticipations of the future. AVith- 
out this love in the present, there is no evidence 
that our faith really grasps the past, and our 
hope of a bright future is, in that case, a mere 
groundless delusion. 



302 FIFTEENTH SUNDA V AFTER TRINITY. 



E\}t jFtfteentfj $itntia2 after Erinitg. 

Keep, ive beseech thee, Lord, iliy Church loith thy per- 
petual mercy; and because the frailty of man withoiit 
thee cannot but fall, keep) us ever by thy help from 
all things hurtful, and lead us to all things profitable 
to our salvation; through Jesus Christ our Lord. 
Amen. 

Cusiodi, Domine, qucesumus Ecclesiam tuam propiiia- 
tione perpetua: et quia sine te labitur humana mor- 
talitas, tuis semper auxiliis ei abstrahaiur a noxiis, 
et ad salutaria dirigatur. Per. (Gel. Sac. , Miss. 
Sae.) 

THIS Collect is derived ultimately from the 
Sacramentary of Gelasius. 
Our Reformers in 1549 altered the Epistle for 
the day. Previously it had been formed by the 
last two verses of the fifth Chapter to the Gala- 
tians, with the earlier half of the sixth Chapter. 
The Reformers took the latter half of the sixth 
Chapter as the Epistle, in preference to the ear- 
lier. The petition of the Collect is founded upon 
the consideration of human frailty; — "because 
the frailty of man without thee cannot but fall." 
Now, in the earlier Epistle there were two distinct 
notices of human frailty. " Brethren, if a man 
be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, 
restore such an one in the spirit of meekness; 
considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted." 
" And let us not be weary in well-doing : for in 
due season we shall reap, if we faint not." Weari- 



FIFTEENTH SUNDA Y AFTER TRINITY. 303 

ness in well-doing is one of the ways in which 
"the frailtv of" our nature shows itself. — But, 
while these considerations make it hard to see 
why the old Epistle was discarded, it must be 
confessed that the new one is anything but in- 
appropriate. The whole strain of the Collectr is 
against glorying in man. Man needs " perpet- 
ual mercy;" without God his frailty cannot but 
fall. The foolishness of trusting or glorying in 
man, on account of his sinful infirmity and the 
dangers to which he is exposed, is recognized 
by the Apostle very emphatically in our present 
Epistle, when, in answer to those who gloried in 
legal iDriyileges, and in having the seal of God's 
covenant impressed upon their persons by cir- 
cumcision, he exclaims: "God forbid that I 
should glor}', save in the cross of our Lord Jesus 
Christ, b}^ whom the world is crucified unto me, 
and I unto the world." Both in the Collect, and 
in the Epistle which the Prayer Book, as it is 
at present, associates with it, the nothingness 
and resourcelessness of man in himself is fully 
recognized; and this forms quite a sufficient 
thread of connection between the two. 

We now turn to the Gospel, which has been 
the same from the earliest times, with the excep- 
tion that the old Gospel dropped the last verse 
of St. INIatthew vi. Here the connection is much 
more strongty marked, and is very edifying. The 
great theme of the Gospel, is oui' dependence 
upon God for food and raiment. He caters for 
the fowls of the air vdthout their making any 



304 FIFTEENTH SUNDA V AFTER TRINITY. 

provision for the future, or building any granary; 
He arrays the flowers. Therefore serve Him in 
singleness of mind, seeking His will only, and 
not worldly wealth, ("ye cannot serve God and 
mammon "). Now see what a depth is given to 
the Collect and its petitions by the association 
of this Gospel with it. From our dependence 
upon God for food and raiment the mind travels 
on to our still more utter dependence upon Him 
for the bread of life and the raiment of right- 
eousness, both of which blessings He provides 
for us in His Son. The frailty of the body is 
such, that it would collapse without a daily sup- 
ply of food and without suitable raiment. — And 
similarly, or rather much more, the frailty of our 
moral nature is such, that without the bread 
of life received into our souls by faith and 
without the raiment of Christ's righteousness, 
which is put on and worn by faith, the soul can- 
not but droop and fall. 

" Keep, we beseech thee, O Lord, thy Church 
with thy perpetual mercy." There is something 
peculiar in this petition, in which God is implored 
to keep His Church, — not with His fatherly care, 
not with His watchful providence, not with the 
guardianship of His angels, nor even with that 
of His grace, but with His mercy. The Latin is, 
" Custodi Ecclesiam tuam propitiatione perpetua," 
" Keep thy Church with a perpetual propitiation," 
just as the true rendering of the publican's prayer 
is, — not " God be merciful," but — " God be rec- 
onciled (or propitiated) to me the sinner." The 



FIFTEENTH SUNDA V AFTER TRINITY. 305 

word " propitiation " implies a great deal more 
than the word "mercy." Mercy is merel}^ a sen- 
timent in the mind, independent of anything 
which may be done or suffered to procure the 
outflow of it towards its object. "Propitiation," 
on the other hand, is not simj^l}^ mercy, but mer- 
cy shown through the acceptance of atonement. 
Guardianship, therefore, of the Church h\j pro- 
pitiation must imjDly that, at every step in her 
course the blood and merits of Christ need to be 
pleaded for her, if she is to be secure. 

"And, because the frailty of man without thee 
cannot but fall," (quite literally it is, "because 
the mortality of man without thee is apt to fall.") 
It is very interesting to connect the sentiments 
of these Collects with the period of the Church's 
history, at which they first made their appear- 
ance. Gelasius's Sacramentary, which is the ear- 
liest known source of this prayer, was compiled 
quite at the close of the fifth century. Now it is 
one of the recorded facts of the life of Gelasius 
that, finding the Pelagian heresy to be reviving 
in Picenum, he addressed to the bishops of that 
district a circular letter, representing the taint 
of this heresy as a greater calamity than the in- 
cursions of the barbarians. Pelagius, a monk of 
"Welsh extraction, in the earlier part of the fifth 
century, had taught that death w^as not, as the 
Scriptures tell us, the penalty of sin, and that 
Adam would have died, if he had never sinned. 
Augustine and the orthodox, on the other hand, 
recognized the intimate connection between the 



306 FIFTEENTH SUNDA Y AFTER TRINITY. 

two; so that death was in their e3"es merely the 
outcome, the symbol of sin in him who under- 
goes it. And by the association of the two ideas 
in their mind it was, that " mortality " in this 
Collect came to mean moral frailty. Observe, 
too, the express and strong Anti-Pelagian asser- 
tion inwoven into the Collect, — that ''without 
God the frailty of man cannot but fall." 

"Keep us ever by th}^ help from all things 
hurtful, and lead us to aU things profitable to our 
salvation." Here again we come across the his- 
tory and the current controversies of the time of 
Gelasius. It was the time of the breaking up 
of the Roman Empii'e by the Goths. Probably 
nothing that has occurred since in the world can 
be paralleled, either for the confusion and calam- 
ities it caused, or the alarm and dismay it spread, 
with the going to j)ieces of a social system so 
vast, so complicated, and of such long standing as 
the Roman Empire. The world seemed coming 
to an end to those who witnessed the dissolution 
of this system. " The calamities of the times," 
says Mosheim, "produced jDernicious effects upon 
rehgious sentiment, and induced many to reject 
the behef of a superintending Providence, and to 
exclude the Deity from the government of the 
universe." This fundamental denial of the truth 
spread widely in Gaul; and during the inroads 
of the barbarians, which gave occasion to so 
profane and blasphemous a doctrine, Salvian, a 
presbyter of the Church of Marseilles, a culti- 
vated and influential man, had written a work to 



FIFTEENTH SUNDA V AFTER TRINITY. 307 

expose the error, entitled, "On Providence; or 
on the Government of God and on His just and 
present judgment:" And here we see the assur- 
ance of true Christians to that effect, coming out 
in the latter part of this Collect, in which God is 
besought ever to keep His Church from all things 
really "hurtful" to her spiritual interests, and to 
lead her to all things " profitable to her salva- 
tion." Their earnest prayer for this guardian- 
ship, this guidance, was the way in which Gela- 
sius, and other good men of the day, recognized 
the truth that " the Lord is King, be the people 
never so impatient; He sitteth between the cher- 
ubims, be the earth never so unquiet." 

I must not omit to notice, in conclusion, the 
alteration which the translators have made in the 
wording of the prayer, which, if it has a little 
impaired its unit}", has considerably added to its 
reality. As it stands in the Latin of the Sacra- 
mentary, the latter part of it as well as the for- 
mer is a praj'er for the Church: — "Keep it ever 
by thy help from all things hurtful, and lead zY," 
etc., etc. Cranmer and his Committee changed 
the " it " into " us," — ^judiciously, it appears to 
me; for how often it happens that we speak and 
think of the Church as an abstraction, forgetting 
that we ourselves are the Church ! The Church 
(or body of Christ) is only the aggregate of be- 
heving men and women throughout the world; 
and in praying that she may be shielded by 
God's mercy in Christ, kept from spiritual in- 
jury, and guided to what is spiritually expedient 



308 SIXTEENTH SUNDA V AFTER TRINITY. 

for her, we are putting up a prayer, which indeed 
travels in the comprehensiveness of its charity to 
the ends of the earth, but which yet, at the same 
time, has a reflex influence upon ourselves, re- 
turning into our own bosoms, as Noah's dove 
into the ark, with a message of peace, comfort, 
and benediction. 



W^z StxtemtJj Suntrag after Erinitg. 

Lo7'd, we beseech ihee, lei thy continual pity cleanse 
and defend thy Church; and, because it cannot con- 
tinue in safety without thy succor, preserve it ever- 
more by thy help and goodness; through Jesus Christ 
our Lord. Amen. 

Ecclesiam tuani, quoesumus, Domine, miseratio contin- 
uata mundel ei muniat, et quia sine te nan potest salva 
consisiere, tuo semper munere gubernetur. Per Do- 
minum. (Gel. Sac, Miss. Sak.) 

THIS Collect, like the preceding, to which 
it bears a close resemblance, traces back 
to the Sacramentary of Gelasius. In both Col- 
lects we find a recognition of the Church's need 
of cleansing by Divine pardon, and of defence 
b}^ Divine Providence, — a recognition which must 
have borrowed great vividness from the circum- 
stances of the times. That the very idea of true 
spirituality was depraved and corrupted is clear 
from the fact that, in the earlier part of the cen- 
tury, the fanaticism of Symeon, a Syrian shep- 
herd, who passed thirty years upon a pillar sixty 



SIXTEENTH SUNDA V AFTER TRINITY. 309 

feet high, where he practiced prayer in painful 
attitudes, while subsisting upon one meal a week, 
and having no clothing but a wrapper of skin, 
" excited the admiration of emperors and found 
no disfavor with theologians." It is true that, 
when the Church of those ages prayed for cleans- 
ing, she did it in ignorance to a great extent of 
the deep need she had of it, arising from her 
internal corruptions; but this is the case with 
the Church of all ages. When we say day by 
da}'*, "Forgiye us our trespasses," we are con- 
scious of some things which need to be forgiven; 
but how much is there really amiss in our spirit- 
ual character, in our habits of thought and ways 
of feeling, of which we are not conscious, but re- 
specting which we hope that our Heavenly Father 
will regard it as embraced under our prayer for 
pardon, forgiving us not only the things which 
we feel to be amiss, but also those which He sees 
to be amiss in us, in thought, word, and deed. 

" O Lord, we beseech thee, let thy continued 
pity" (so it is in the Latin; and "continued" 
conveys, j^erhaps, with more exactness than " con- 
tinual," that the pity is never intermitted, but is 
carried on through the Church's whole career) 
"cleanse and defend th}^ Church." There are 
two great cleansings of the members of the 
Church, of which Holy Scripture speaks. The 
bathing (or total ablution) is by Baj)tism "in 
the name of the Father, and of the Son, and 
of the Holy Ghost." This is what St. Paul 
calls Christ's sanctification and cleansing of the 



310 SIXTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY. 

Churcli " witli the washing of water by the word." 
The footwashing (or partial abkition), which needs 
to be repeated daily, is that of which our Lord 
spoke to St. Peter after the Last Supper; "He 
that is washed" (it should be "bathed," — whose 
whole person has received an ablution) "needeth 
not save to wash his feet, but is clean every whit." 
This is the cancelling of the guilt contracted in 
our daily walk, through a renewed application 
of Christ's blood to the conscience, which we 
ask for, when we say, "Forgive us our trespasses 
as we forgive them that trespass against us." 

"Th}^ Church." The original translators had 
written " thy congregation," and so it continued 
down to the last Bevision of the Prayer Book, 
when Bishop Cosin altered it to " Church." It 
is true that the words "church" and "congrega- 
tion " are fundamentally the same. The Greek 
word " Ecclesia " means merely an assembly of 
certain persons, specially called out of a larger 
body to represent it. It was the name given 
to the Greek Parliaments, or legislative assem- 
blies, and was hence transferred to the assembly 
of the Church, which is called out of the world 
by preaching, and constituted by Sacraments. 
But very different associations have gathered 
round the two words in the course of their 
history, which do not reside in their etymology; 
a^id our Authorized Version of the Scriptures 
has done not a little to form these associations- 
There " congregation " is the word commonly em- 
ployed to denote God's people under the Dis- 



SIXTEENTH SUNDA Y AFTER TRINITY. 311 

pensatiou of the Law (" the tabernacle of the 
congregatiou," "all the congregation of the chil- 
dren of Israel," etc.), while the word "church'" 
is used in speaking of the Christian Society 
founded by our Lord and His Apostles under 
Him. It is true that St. Stephen is made to 
speak of "the church in the wilderness;" but 
this passage stands almost alone; and we think, 
therefore, that in view of the very different as- 
sociations which gather round the two words, 
Bishop Cosin has done well and wisely in draw- 
ing his pen through " congregation," wherever 
he found it applied in our Services to the Chris- 
tian society, and writing over it the word "Church." 

"And, because it cannot continue in safety 
without thy succor " (literally " without thee," 
as in the preceding Collect) "preserve it ever- 
more by th}^ helj) and goodness." " Preserve " 
is a departure from the original Latin of the 
SacramentaiT. "May it be governed and guided 
evermore " gives as nearly as possible the idea 
in English. 

" By thy helj) and goodness," — two words in 
the translation for one in the original. It would 
be impossible by a single English word to give 
the full idea ol the Latin munuH — "tuo semper 
munere gubernetur." If we were at liberty to 
use as many words as w^e please, the translation 
would be, "may she be governed and guided 
evermore b}"- the gracious discharge of thine 
office towards her ! " " Munus " means the of- 
fice of a public functionary, the service which 



312 SE VENTEENTH S UNDA V AETER TRINITY. 

this functionary does to the public by the faith- 
ful execution of his office, and hence a service 
generally, a kindness, a favor shown to another 
at one's own expense, a gift. Now Christ is the 
Head of His body the Church, — so called, be- 
cause in the head resides the brain, which di- 
rects the movements of the body. When Christ 
then puts Himself at the helm of the Church, 
and guides her course over the waves of this 
troublesome world, this is a fulfilment towards 
her of His proper function and office; and yet 
it is a fulfilment which is all of grace, a free 
favor, a great service done to the undeserving. 



E|}e Seirmteentf) Simtrag after SCrinitg- 

Lord, we pray thee that thy grace may always prevent 
and folio 10 us, and make us continually to be given 
to ail good loorJcs; through Jesus Christ our Lord. 
Amen. 

Tua nos, Domine, qucesumus, gratia semper et pr(2- 
veniat et sequaiur, ac bonis operibus jugiter prcestei 
esse intenios. Per Dominum nostrum. (Gbeg. Sac, 
Miss. Sak.) 

THIS Collect, which may be traced up to 
Gregory's Sacramentary, is peculiarly val- 
uable as sketching for us in a few brief words 
the doctrine of grace. "Prevent," as used in 
the prayer before us, does not mean to hinder, 
but according to the derivation of the Latin verb 
from which it comes, to anticipate, forestall. 



SEVENTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY. 313 

"Lord, we pray thee that thy grace may al- 
ways prevent." People's notions about the mean- 
ing of the word " grace " are very misty. The 
Greek word translated "grace " in the New Tes- 
tament means originally a favor, a free, unmerited, 
unsohcited gift. Most often it is a favor outside 
of us, if I may use the expression, some act of 
kindness, — something done for us rather than in 
us. And thus it is frequently used of the work 
of Christ, and not — as we almost uniformly use 
it nowada^'s — of the work of the Holy Ghost. 
This use of it we have in the passage: " Ye know 
the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though 
He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor," 
And observe that, conformably with this use of 
the word, grace is connected with the Son, not 
with the Holy Ghost, in that Avell-known form of 
benediction : " The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, 
and the love of God, and the fellowship of the 
Holy Ghost, be with us all evermore." — But, be- 
cause the Holy Spirit is given to all those who 
embrace by faith the gift of Christ, the word 
" grace " is sometimes used (though not nearly 
so often as we use it in our modern theology) 
to signify this second favor on the part of God, 
in ministering to us through Christ the influences 
of His Spirit: " Of His fulness," says the Apostle, 
"have all we received, and grace for grace," — 
ever higher measures of Divine influence rej^lac- 
ing and superseding the lower. In conformity 
with which passage of St. John's Gospel St. 
Peter exhorts: "Grow in grace." Grace should 



314 SEVENTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY. 

be tliought of as the action of God the Holy 
Spirit within us, moulding the affections and 
will into conformity with God's law and Christ's 
image. 

" Let thy grace always prevent." There is great 
force in the always. God's grace has already pre- 
vented or forestalled us, both before we were 
born, and from our earliest childhood. The true 
light shone upon our countr}', the Gospel was 
preached, and the Church established here, long 
ages before our birth. God's grace has fore- 
stalled us iiidimdually no less than nationally. As 
infants we were brought to the Baptismal font, 
and there the seal of God's covenant was im- 
pressed upon us, and spiritual life -was communi- 
cated to us in germ. " We beseech thee that thy 
grace may always" — not in evangelization onl}', 
not in Baptism only, but always — " forestall and 
follow us." 

Every man who has an orchard knows what it 
is to have a magnificent promise of fruit in the 
spring, — which promise is frustrated by the nip- 
ping frost of a single night. Unless God's grace 
comes in the rear, as well as the front, and fol- 
lows up the work which it has begun in us, any 
promise of spiritual life which we may give is 
nipped and blighted, and comes to nothing, — 
the "holy desires" do not expand into "good 
counsels" (or resolutions), nor the "good coun- 
sels" mature themselves and take shape in "just 
works." Power to consummate is wanted, as well 
as will to initiate — " continual heljD " to bring the 



S£ VENTEENTH S UNDA V A FTER TRINIT K 3 1 5 

"good desires" to "good effect," — grace to ^york 
"svith us, when Ave have the good will, as well as 
to forestall us, in order that we may have it. 
But observe that the " preventing grace," where 
it exists, is a pledge that, if we will only be 
faithful to the guidance of the Spii'it, if we will 
only, " make haste and prolong not the time " 
to move in the dii'ection He indicates, we shall 
receive the following or co-operating grace, or, 
in other words, the power, according to that 
word of St. Paul: "Being confident of this verj^ 
thing, that He which hath begun a good work in 
you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ." 

" And make us continually to be given to all 
good works." The continuance indicated is that 
of a perennial stream, which glides on day and 
night without intermission. The Christian's good 
works are not to be done by fits and starts and 
intermittently, as the natural man takes up an 
enterprise warmly, and then gets tired of it and 
throws it up, but jugiter, — ceaselessly, — like the 
steadj', noiseless flow of a river ever fed by a 
gushing spring. And it gives further point to 
the simile to consider that the Holy Spii'it, whose 
grace fertilizes the soul, is sjDoken of as a river 
of living water flowing forth from the smitten 
rock — which rock is Christ crucified. 

"To be given to all good works." In the or- 
iginal it is, to be intent upon them, to have all 
the powers of the mind bent upon keeping them 
up; very accurately representing the force of St. 
Paul's words to Titus: "These things I will that 



316 EIGHTEENTH SUNDA V AFTER TRINITY. 

thou affirm constantly, that they which have be- 
lieved in God might be careful " (solicitous and 
studious) " to maintain " (give sedulous attention 
to) "good works.'' The Christian is a spiritual 
gardener. The garden is his own soul, and his 
task, like Adam's, is " to dress it and to keep 
it." He recognizes in this prayjer that "a river 
of living water" (even the Spirit of God) must 
permeate every part of this garden, to make it 
and keep it fruitful. The fruit is "good works" 
— "aZZ good works" — works of our calling, works 
belonging to our relations in life, — works of piety 
and philanthropy, and the use of every means in 
our power to spread the knowledge of Christ and 
His gospel. 



Eije lEtg})teent{} $itntia5 after Ertnttg* 

Lord, ice beseech ihee, grant thy people grace to with- 
stand the temptations of the world, the flesh, and the 
devil, and imth pure hearts and minds to follow 
thee the only God; through Jesus Christ our Lord. 
Amen. 

Da, qucesunius, Domine, populo iuo diaholica vitare con- 
tagia, ei te solum Deum jjura mente sectari. Per 
Dominum. (Gel. Sac, Miss. Sab.) 

THIS Collect, as it appears for the first time 
in the Sacramentary of Gelasius (494), was 
not nearly so full-bodied as our E-eformers and 
Revisers between them have made it. For "pure 
heart," in the latter clause, Cranmer wrote " pure 



EIGHTEENTH SUNDA V AFTER TRINITY. 317 

heart and mind," improving the rhythm, and add- 
ing to the sense. In the earHer clause Cranmer 
had kept close to the original. His translation 
was, " Grant thy people grace to avoid the conta- 
gions of the devil." Instead of, "to avoid the 
contagions of," Cosin wrote, "to withstand the 
temptations of; " and instead of mentioning only 
the devil, he inserted by name the two other 
spiritual enemies of mankind, the world and the 
flesh. 

"Lord, we beseech thee, grant th}' peojole 
grace to avoid" (so the Collect ran originally) 
" the contagions of the devil." "' To withstand 
temptation " is a plainer and better phrase than 
"to avoid contagion." Still the word "avoid" 
(or "shun") may teach us a useful lesson. There 
are some temptations, chiefl}" those to impurity, 
which are best withstood, not by fighting, but 
by running away. Do not look them full in the 
face, or attempt a hand-to-hand encounter with 
them, but "shun the contagion"; fl}^ as far and 
as fast as vou can from the infected moral 
atmosphere. — Then the word "contagion," too, 
had its teaching. This word insinuated the temp- 
tations arising from the world, though it did not 
express them. For contagion means the commu- 
nication of disease by contact with the jDeoj^le 
who have it; and hence it comes to mean the 
moral harm which is received from vicious com- 
panionship or intercourse. So that the influence 
of the world is wrapped up in this word, just as 
the influence of the flesh is seen to be wrapped 



318 EIGHTEENTH SUNDA Y AFTER TRINITY. 

up in the word " avoid," when you come to ask 
the question, " What temptations are best resisted 
b}^ avoiding them ? '"' — And then, as to the mention 
of no adversary but "the devil" in the original 
Collect. The devil, as the fountain of all evil in 
the heart and in society, is doubtless the first 
person of the unholy Trinity, and thus involves 
and includes both the other persons. But Cosin 
has done admirably well to draw out the impli- 
cations of the original Collect into explicit detail; 
and we hail joyfully his "withstand the tempta- 
tions of the world, the flesh, and the devil." By 
the world, speaking roughly, is meant evil men; 
by the flesh, the corrupt nature which we inherit, 
or (in other words) evil self; by the devil, evil 
angels. And how are these foes, each and all of 
them, to be subdued ? " Lord, we beseech thee, 
grant thy people grace to withstand.'' " Besist 
the devil," says St. James, " and he will flee from 
you." " What man is there that is fearful and 
faint-hearted ? " said the officers of Israel to their 
troops before the order to charge was given, 
" let him go and return unto his house, lest his 
brethren's heart faint as well as his heart." A 
faint-hearted man will always be worsted by his 
spiritual foes. The only policy is " withstand " ; 
however thick the fiery darts fly around thee, op- 
pose to them the shield of faith; "quit you like 
men, be strong." 

"And with pure mind." So the words stood 
in the Latin Collect. Cranmer changed this to 
"hearts and minds." Why does the mind find 



EIGHTEENTH SUNDA Y AFTER TRINITY. 319 

itself filled with those frivolous or worldly, those 
lustful or tieslily, those ambitious and sceptical 
(or, in other words, those devilish) thoughts, which 
constitute our temptations ? These thoughts are 
brewed in the heart, they seethe and simmer there, 
before they bubble up and boil over into the mind. 
The heart and mind are purified, not only by " the 
blood of Christ purging the conscience from dead 
works to serve the living God," but also by each 
separate act of resistance to evil: "Ye have pu- 
rified your souls," saj'S St. Peter, — not merely 
in believing, — but "in obeying the truth." 

"To follow thee." An intensified form of the 
verb "follow" is used in the Latin; — to follow 
with devotion and zeal, — go after as a man goes 
after his pursuit, regarding it as the business of 
his life and giving himself to it. There is here a 
passage of the thought to something in advance 
of what has gone before. It is not enough to 
withstand temptation, to resist evil, to " cleanse 
ourselves from aU. filthiness of the flesh and 
spirit." The Christian's goodness is not negative 
only, but positive also; he must "perfect holi- 
ness in the fear of God"; "follow God as a dear 
child " ; walk after Him ; addict himself to His 
service; make that service the business of his 
life. 

"The only God." What is the force of this 
" only "' in this position ? Doubtless there is an 
implication here that the objects of pursuit which 
the world, the flesh, and the devil propose, are 
idols or false cjoda. The world holds out pomps 



320 NINETEENTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY. 

and vanities; the flesh pleasure; the devil posi- 
tion, influence, or j)ride of intellectual power. 
All these disappoint in the end; they break up 
and fail; they do not fill or satisfy the soul. 



Etc Nmetceutl} $uutiau after Erinitu, 

O God, forasmuch as wiOioat thea we are not able to 
please thee; MercifuUi/ grant, that thy Holy Spirit 
may in all things direct and rule our hearts; through 
Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. 

Dirigat corda nostra, qucesumiis, Domine, tuce misera- 
iionis operatio; quia tibi sine te placere non p>ossu- 
mus. Per Dominum. (Gel. Sac, Miss. Sar.) 

THIS, like the Collect -which immediately fol- 
lows it, is a Gelasian Collect, the petition 
of which was in the first instance literally trans- 
lated by Cranmer, but afterwards so altered by 
Cosin and his colleagues at the last Revision as 
more exj)licitly to affirm the office and agency of 
the Holy Ghost. The petition ran thus in Cran- 
mer's translation: "Grant that the xcorking of thy 
mercy may in all things direct and rule our 
hearts." This petition contains implicHhj the 
doctrine of the Holy Ghost, and of His being- 
bestowed upon man through Christ, and in com- 
passion to human frailty; but it is wrapped up 
rather than expressly asserted in the words. 
Cosin thought it good expressly to assert it; and 
so, without dropi^ing the idea of the Divine mer- 



NIXErEENTJI SiXDA Y AITER TRIXITV. 321 

cy, he made explicit mention of the great Agent 
in our sanctirtcation; it was no longer to be, 
" Grant that the operation of thy mercy may 
direct our hearts," but, '* Mercifully grant 
that thy Holy Spirit may direct" them — a most 
hajipy change of the wording; for by it the 
Spirit's personality and influence are brou;^dit 
inti) high relief; and of these the Church needs 
continual reminding, both in prayer and preach- 
ing. Cranmer's tianslation is an enlargement of, 
though wc can hardly say a deviation from, the 
original. In the Latin a single word denotes the 
agency of the Hi>ly Spirit upon the heart; "Mer- 
cifully grant that thy Holy Si)irit may dinvl our 
hearts." Cranmer lulded, and surely with ad- 
mirable judgment, ** and rule " — *' direct and rule 
our hearts." We recognize immediately a dis- 
tinction between direction and ruling. Not ev- 
ery dii'ector is a ruler. The Hteersman is the 
shij)'s director; the caj)tain is its nder. Direc- 
tion aiiks for wisdom; rule asks fi>r authority and 
power. And it was particularly fitting that, in 
speaking of the Holy Spirit, His direction should 
be distinguished from His rule. For alas I how 
often tlocs He direct, where He is not permitted 
to ride I How often does He indicate the right 
to us, whispering, "This is the way; walk ye in 
it," when we j)erversely turn aside out of the 
path, along which His silent tinger is pointing 
us. We dare not pray for the Spirit's (juidance^ 
without at the same time praying for His gocern- 
m*nit. And then again, "in all things, " — these 



322 NINETEENTH SUNDA V AFTER TRINITY. 

words too are Cranmer's insertion into the origi- 
nal, and they teach us that the guidance must, 
and the subordination ought to, extend to the 
whole of life — that, wherever it is open to us to 
pursue different lines of action, there is room for 
God's guidance and control through His Spirit. 

"VVe now come to consider how the earlier clause 
of the Collect, — " forasmuch as without thee we 
are not able to please thee," — hangs together 
with the petition that "the Holy Spirit may di- 
rect and rule our hearts." The connection of the 
two clauses is not lax, but strict and close. The 
English word " without " by no means gives the 
full meaning which it is intended to convey. 
The sense is, "forasmuch as in severance from 
Thee we are not able to please Thee." Now what 
is the bond of union — the connecting link— ^be- 
tween God and Christ on the one hand, and 
man's soul on the other? There cannot be a 
moment's doubt as to the answer. It is by the 
Holy Spirit that man's spirit is held in union 
with God, with Christ. "He that is joined to 
the Lord is one spirit." To say, then, that in 
severance from God we are unable to please 
Him, is exactly the same thing as to say that 
without His Spirit, in the absence or withdrawal 
of His Spirit, we cannot please Him. 

One more point in this Collect deserves a word 
of comment, — "We are not able to please thee." 
But what a great ennobling thought it is, — a 
thought which has been brought before us more 
than once in previous Collects, — that, under cer- 



NINETEENTH SUNDA Y AFTER TRINITY. 323 

tain conditions, we sinful heirs of flesli and blood 
are able to please God, that we may really win 
His smile of approbation, and feel the sunshine 
of that smile beaming in upon our souls. As to 
the actuating principle, we are expressly told 
that "without faith it is impossible to please 
Him," faith being the principle which lifts man 
out of and above the things of sense, and en- 
ables him to ajoprehend the being and person- 
ality of God. And, as to the method to be pur- 
sued, the Apostle Paul, in the earliest of his 
writings which has come down to us, describes 
it positively as consisting in our sanctification, 
and negatively as consisting in the renunciation 
of all the sinful lusts of the flesh. " We beseech 
you, brethren, and exhort you by the Lord Je- 
sus, that as ye have received of us how ye ought 
to walk and to please God, so ye would abound 
more and more. For ye know what command- 
ments we gave you by the Lord Jesus. For this 
is the will of God, even your sanctification.'' 
Which sanctification is afterwards shown to in- 
volve separation from the sins of impurity, which 
the Apostle elsewhere enumerates first among 
the works of the flesh. It is, then, by the dili- 
gent cultivation of purity that we must seek to 
jDlease God. This is the special form, in which 
the faith Avhich lifts us above the senses is to be 
manifested. And, although this purit}' deals with 
the body in the way of restraint and discipline, 
and consists in keeping it under and bringing 
"it into subjection," yet is the seat of it in the 



324 TWENTIETH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY. 

heart, from whence it flows out for the govern- 
ance of the life. And to yield our hearts is to 
yield ourselves. " Grant, therefore, O Lord, that 
thy Holy Spirit may in all things direct and rule 
'our hearts.'' 



STjie EhjentietJj Suntrag after SCrmitg. 

Almighty and most merciful God, of thy houniiful 
goodness keep us, we beseech thee, from all things that 
Quay hurt us; that we, being ready both in body and 
soul, may cheerfully accomplish those things which 
thou commandest; through Jesus Christ our Lord. 
Amen. 

Omnipotens et misericors Deus, universa nobis adver- 
santia projntiatus exclude; ut menie et corpore pariter 
expediti, quce tua sunt liberis mentibus exsequamur. 
Per. (Gel. Sac, ]\Iiss. Sab.) 

THIS Collect, traced up to the Sacramentary 
of Gelasius, is one of those which received 
some finishing touches, probably from the hand 
of Bishop Cosin, at the last Revision in 1661. 
Then it was that "merciful" in the invocation 
was changed into "most merciful" — the positive 
into the su23erlative — and " we beseech thee " in- 
serted — mere verbal alterations, which yet have 
some value, as improving the rh3^thm of the Eng- 
lish translation, and as rounding off the rather 
angular terseness of the Latin. But Cosin made 
a more important change in Cranmer's transla- 
tion of this prayer. In the Prayer Book of 1549, 
and down to the time of the Revision, the last 



TWENTIETH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY. 325 

clause had stood thus: "that we being ready both 
in body and soul, may with free hearts accomplish 
those things, that thou wouldest have done." This 
" Avith free hearts " was too literal a rendering of 
the Latin, which has "Liberis mentibus," "with 
free minds." Cosin exchanged the three words 
"with free hearts " for one most expressive word, 
" cheerfully," and, though it was onh^ a single and a 
slight stroke, it was the stroke of a master's hand. 
" Cheerfully " is just such a translation as catches 
the s^^irit, while it disregards the letter, of the 
original. 

"Keep us, we beseech thee, from all things 
that ma}^ hurt us." Literally rendered, these 
words are : " Shut out all things that oppose or 
withstand us." And although this literal ren- 
derino* mio'ht not have been sufticientlv clear to 
stand alone without some exj^lanation, it is full 
of meaning, and " Keep us from all things that 
may hurt us " is rather a tame substitute. The 
things that oppose us in our heavenh" course are 
those hindrances in " running the race that is 
set before us," which the devil, the world, and 
the flesh throw in our way. — Lastly; "the things 
which thou commandest" is literally "the things 
which be thine " — God's things, that is, as dis- 
tinct from the things of the world and the things 
of the flesh, or if you please, as distinct from "the 
things that are ours." But in drawing a distinc- 
tion between the things that are God's and the 
things that are ours, let it be observed that there 
is a way in which the things that are ours may 



326 TWENTIETH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY. 

become God's tilings. The most trivial, com- 
monest, humblest work of our calling, if done 
"as to the Lord and not unto men," becomes a 
thing that is God's — a part of His service — quite 
as much as an act of worship is. A holy in- 
tention is the Midas' touch, which changes the 
most commonplace of tasks into fine gold of the 
altar. 

Turning now from these verbal criticisms to 
the great scope of the prayer, we ask. What is 
the leading idea of it? And this will be most 
clearly brought out by taking into consideration 
its accompanying Epistle and Gospel. The Epis- 
tle exhorts to spiritual joyfulness, as the one great 
means of spiritual strength and progress. The 
Gospel is the Parable of the Wedding Garment, 
rightly so called because the lack of a wedding 
gai'ment in one of the guests is the leading point 
in it. And by one of the most eminent theolo- 
gians of our own day the wedding garment has 
been expounded to signify such a spirit of hoty 
joy, as is suitable for the great solemnity of the 
marriage supper of the Lamb.^ How beautifully, 
and in how practical a form, this idea of sjDiritual 
joyfulness is expressed in the Collect, — " that we, 
being ready both in body and soul, may cheer- 
fully accomplish those things which thou com- 
mandest." The "cheerfully" is the keystone of 
the whole prayer, which locks the different clauses 
of it together, and keeps them in their places. 

1 The late Professor Archer Butler, in the first series 
of his Posthumous Sermons. 



TWENTIETH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY. 327 

We pray that obstructions in the race which is 
set before us may be remoYed, — so that we may 
run the way of God's commandments when He 
has set our hearts at liberty. Without this, w^e 
shall not serve God, as He wills to be served, 
"cheer full}'." It is in givers especially that the 
grace of cheerfulness is commended; "God loveth 
a cheerful giver; "' " He that showeth mercy, with 
cheerfulness." But the truth is that this cheer- 
fulness is the very life and soul of all good w^orks, 
that no w^ork is good w^hich is not done in a spirit 
of alacrity and joy. And the source of this alac- 
rity and joy is the opening of our hearts to re- 
ceive all the blessings of Redemption, in the first 
instance, before w^e attempt to do anything for 
God. In spiritual as in natural hfe, receiving- 
must go before giving. 

We must not omit to glance at the mention 
of " the body '" w^hich is made in this Collect, and 
which surely is not its least interesting feature. 
It has been too much the tendency of religious 
thought, to discard the body from all considera- 
tion, and to regard the soul or immortal part of 
man as being the exclusive sphere of Religion. 
But this is contrary alike to reason, to the teach- 
ing of the Church, and to Holy Scripture. Our 
experience teaches that body and mind exercise 
upon one another the subtlest influeibce, not the 
less felt because it cannot be traced or philosoph- 
ically explained, and what recurring references 
to the body do we find in the Canon (or invari- 
able part) of the Communion Office, — "that our 



328 TWENTIETH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY. 

sinful bodies may be made clean by His body;" 
" The Body of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Blood 
of our Lord Jesus Christ, preserve thy body and 
soul:" "we offer and j)resent unto thee .... our 
souls and bodies to be a reasonable, holy, and 
living sacrifice unto thee." Holy Scrij)ture also 
teaches that ''our bodies are temples of the Holy 
Ghost," and bids us " present oiu^ bodies a living* 
sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is our 
reasonable service." Lessons which carry with 
them the practical inferences that health is to be 
studied as a religious duty, and that not of the 
second rank; that the discipline of the body by 
self-denial, the keeping it under and bringing it 
into subjection, is an essential condition of suc- 
cess in running the race that is set before us; 
and that all honor is to be jDaid to the body by 
" keeping it in temperance, soberness, and chas- 
tity," — our Church's exposition this of the sev- 
enth commandment. 



TWENTY-FIRST AFTER TRINITY. 329 



2Ci}e Ctoentg^first Suntrag after Crinitg* 

Grant, ice beseech thee, merciful Lord, to thy faithful 
2)eople 2Jardo)i and peace, that they may he cleansed 
from all their sins, and serve thee rvith a quiet mind; 
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. 

Largire, qucesumus, Domine, fidelibus tuis indulgentiam 
placatus et pacem; td par iter ah omnibus mundentur 
offensis, et secura tibi mente deserviant. Per Do- 
minum. (Gel. Sac, Miss. Sae.) 

IN the series of the Communion Collects this is 
the last which is derived from the Sacramen- 
tary of Gelasius. 

The Latin word for "grant" is "largire," — 
"grant largely or bountifully." God never does 
things by halves. He is always a bountiful giver, 
"wont to give more than either we desire or de- 
serve." "When He feeds a famishing multitude 
with bread and fish, there remain of fragments 
twelve baskets full. 

"Merciful Lord." But the original word cor- 
responding to " merciful " has a good deal more 
idea in it than the English word represents. It 
is rather, " Do thou, O Lord, being appeased or 
propitiated, grant us pardon and peace." Surely 
the teaching of this word is most important in 
connection with j^resent controversies. For some 
do not scruple to tell us that God needs not to 
be propitiated for human sin. The position would 
be true enough, if they would add, " since Christ 
hath died." God doefi need no propitiation be- 



330 TWENTY-FIRST SUNDAY 

yond — over and above — that which Christ once 
offered for all. But that propitiation most em- 
phatically loas needed. And surely the moral 
sense, for whose dictates such profound defer- 
ence is professed by the rationalizing school, as- 
sures us in no uncertain tones that God must be 
a righteous Judge, as well as a merciful Father, 
and that to suppose Him capable of passing over 
sin, without manifesting His displeasure against 
it, would be to call in question the perfectness of 
His character. His justice must be appeased be- 
fore His mercy can flow forth. 

" Grant to thy faithful ones 'pardon.'" Here 
again a fine shade of the original Latin deserves 
notice. The word for " pardon " is indulgentia, 
indulgence, such an overlooking of faults and 
defects of character as the fondness of a father 
leads him to exhibit towards his children. The 
idea is exactly embodied in that promise of God 
by Malachi: "I will spare them, as a man spar- 
eth his own son that serveth him." And, Id the 
present connection, the use of this word, as well 
as the circumstance that the pardon is solicited 
for God's " faithful people," shows that what is 
meant is not the absolution which God gives, 
when first a sinner or a worldling sincerely turns 
to Him, but the outflowing of fatherly compas- 
sion towards His children or believing servants, 
whereby their constantly recurring failures are 
put away. 

" That they may be cleansed from all their sins, 
and serve thee with a quiet mind." The trans- 



AFTER TRINITY. 331 

lators have here left out a word which signifies 
" at the same time," — nor is it essential, although 
its presence leads the mind into an edifying train 
of thought. By means of it pardon and peace 
were sued for together, thus raising in our minds 
the question. Can one exist without the other? 
Can there be pardon without peace ? Wherever 
there is a spark of genuine faith, pardon is 
granted; but faith is not always strong enough 
to carry with it tlxe sense of pardon, which is peace. 
" And serve thee with a quiet mind." The word 
for " serve " expresses devoted service, — the ser- 
vice which is done to an object, when a man lives 
for it. And "quiet" is literally "free from care" 
— a mind free from harassing anxieties, and which 
has learned the secret of saying under foreseen 
difficulties, " the Lord will provide." A transla- 
tion not offering anything of the vigorous, terse 
English of that in the Prayer Book, but bringing 
out the fine shades of significance, on which I 
have commented, would be as follows: "Be rec- 
onciled, we beseech thee, Lord, to thy faithful 
ones, and grant them bountifully indulgence and 
peace, that they may be cleansed from all of- 
fences, and at the same time do thee devoted 
service without distraction of mind ; through Je- 
sus Christ our Lord." 

The Epistle and Gospel, thoughtfully consid- 
ered, are seen to harmonize with the Collect in 
the trains of thought which they suggest. The 
Collect sues for peace. But peace imj)lies and 
pre-supj)oses war, and the Epistle speaks of a 



332 TWENTY-FIRST SUNDAY 

state of war and lifelong* conflict in wliich the 
true Christian is engaged, and in the course of 
which he cannot but occasionally sustain defeats 
and receive wounds. In the Gospel we have the 
story of the nobleman of Capernaum, whose son 
was at the point of death. He had a little faith; 
for his coming to Christ implied so much, and 
moreover it is said of him, "the man heliei^ed 
the word that Jesus had spoken unto him; " but 
it was not a large, generous faith; he fancied 
that He must be on the spot in order to work 
the miracle: "Sir, come down," he exclaims, 
"ere my child die." His faith does not go far 
enough to give him peace; he is worried and 
anxious about results, grudges every moment 
that Christ delays to follow him : he is not free 
from care. But the prayer of the Collect, as we 
have seen, is ioT peace and for "a quiet mind," — 
the peace which flows from a sense of pardon, 
— such a sense as can only be engendered by a strong 
and robust faith. 

The Collect is indeed a devotional gem; and 
beautiful is the echo made in it to that most gra- 
cious invitation in the eleventh chapter of St. 
Matthew, with the wording of which we are all 
so famihar, that its meaning fails to impress us as 
it ought: "Come unto me, all ye that labor and 
are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take 
my yoke upon jou, and learn of me, for I am 
meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest 
unto your souls. For my yoke is eas}^, and my 
burden is light." The original peace comes of 



AFTER TRINITY. 333 

simply going to Christ, or through Christ to 
God; the subsequent peace comes of the devoted 
service, which after pardon we j'ield to Him. 
Be it remembered that, soothing as peace with 
God is, it impHes and can only be realized in 
warfare with His enemies, and that no soul can 
know from experience what it is in its fulness, 
until he has wrestled with principalities and 
powers, and, even where not foiled by them, has 
painfully felt the harassing and weariness of such 
a conflicts There is a yoke to be carried, a bur- 
den to be borne; and rest unto the soul cannot 
possibly be maintained, however it may be in the 
first instance tasted, without carrying and bear- 
ing it. 



W^t SCtoentg^secontr SunDajj after Ertnitg* 

Lord, we beseech thee to Iceep thy household the Church 
1)1 continual godliness; that through thy protection it 
may be free from all adversities, and devoutly given 
to serve thee in good icorks, to the glory of thy Name; 
through Jesus CJirist our Lord. Amen. 

Familiam tuam, qucesumics, Dojnine, continua pietate 
custodi; id a cunctis adversitatibus te protegente sit 
libera, etin bonis actibus tuo nomini sit devota. Per 
JDominian. (Gkeg. Sac, Miss. Sae.) 

THE English of this Collect has never been 
altered, since it was first made in 1549. 
It is a translation from a Latin original, found 
in a MS. Sacramentary of the ninth or tenth cen- 
tury, which was given by Leofric, bishop of Exe- 



334 TWENTY-SECOND SUNDAY 

ter, to his Cliiircli before the Norman Conquest, 
and traced up to the Sacramentary of Gregory. 
The translation in this instance is not only incor- 
rect, but its incorrectness is of a nature to ob- 
literate the connection of thought between the 
Collect and the Gospel. — "Lord, we beseech thee 
to keep thy household the Church." "House- 
hold" is an admirably-chosen word to express 
the Latin "familia,'' God's household is an es- 
tablishment consisting of children and servants, 
but having this point of distinction from earthly 
households, that the children and servants are 
the same people; he who in one point of view 
is a child, in another is a servant and domestic. 
This estabhshment was founded by our Lord 
Jesus Christ, and fully set up on the day of Pen- 
tecost, on which occasion all the disciples were 
gathered together into one house, symbolical, 
no doubt, of the one Church of Christ. "Keep 
thy household the Church in continual godliness.'' 
This is a mistaken translation. The Latin, in- 
deed, " continua pietate custodi," might possibly 
mean this, but as a fact it certainly does not. 
And it is noticeable that the mistake is repeated 
in the Collect for the Fifth Sunday after the 
Epiphany, where the first clause of the original 
is the same as we have here, and the translation 
runs thus : — " We beseech thee to keep thy Church 
and household continually in thy true religion." 
The translation here should be : — " We beseech 
thee to keep thy household the Church tvith " 
(not in, but loith — this is to be the instrument 



AFTER TRINITY. 335 

of guardianship), " thy continual pity." The truth 
is that pietas denotes not only man's sentiments 
towards God (as in our word " piety "), but also 
God's sentiments towards man, (as in our word 
"pity"). Pity as well as pietij (in French pitie 
as well as piete) is a form of the old Latin word 
pietas, and expresses a full half of the idea con- 
veyed by that old word. 

A beautiful harmony exists between the Col- 
lect, as it stands in the original, and the Gospel. 
"Keep thy household the Church with thy con- 
tinual fatherly compassion." Now the Gospel 
tells us of a king who had a " familia," — a house- 
hold of servants, one of whom had run up an 
enormous debt to him of ten thousand talents. 
And when the daj^ of reckoning came, and the 
man was in trouble about his debt, and asked 
for time to discharge it, the king — though he 
was not a father, but merely a master who took 
an interest in his servants — "was moved with 
compassion, and loosed him, and forgave him 
the debt." Even the best and most faithful of 
God's servants, even the most dutiful of His 
children, are dail}^ running up a debt to Him 
which they cannot pay. This debt, if it were 
pressed against them, would lay them open to 
eternal banishment from God's favor and pres- 
ence. Therefore the prayer of the Collect is that 
a continual outflow of pz'etes,— fatherly comjDassion, 
-. — may remit the debt as it accrues. And now, 
what is the issue and result of this sheltering 
of the Church under the wings of the Divine 



336 TWENTY-SECOND SUNDAY 

Compassion? First, the Church's safety — "that 
through thy protection it may be free from all 
adversities " (not from earthly trials and troubles, 
but from all influences adverse to its growth in 
grace, from all drawbacks in its heavenly course). 
But is the Church to be so shielded and shel- 
tered, without making any return? Are her 
transgressions to be blotted out, and herself 
secured from the results of them, in vain? Not 
so. The Heavenly Father's pity and protection 
must bear fruit in her. And so the Collect closes, 
" and devoutly given to serve thee in good works, 
to the glory of thy name." Our devotion to God, 
if sincere, can be on no other ground than a high 
estimation of His character. It must take a prac- 
tical form. It is not a mere fine sentiment, but 
a living, working principle, which lays hold of 
the springs of human character, and therefore 
shapes and models human conduct — "in bonis 
actibus devota " — devoted to God's name in the 
path of good. St. Paul prays in the Epistle 
of the Day for the Philippians, that they " may 
be filled with the fruits of righteousness " (not 
with its blossoms and leaves only — but with its 
fruits), "which are by Jesus Christ, unto the glory 
and praise of God." The Collect, however, while 
it does not omit these fruits, but, on the other 
hand, sues for them with all earnestness, places 
them in their true order, — after, not before, grace. 
Having first experienced fatherly compassion and 
fatherly protection, the Church then gives her 
heart to God, and walks in good actions. At 



AFTER TRINITY. 337 

least such is the teaching of the original Latin 
prayer, and you will agree Avith me that we have 
lost a valuable truth by the substitution in the 
translation of a different idea. 



®{)e Eicientg'tljirti Suntiag after Ertnitg* 

God, our refuge and streagtli, who art the ctuihor of 
all godliness; Be ready, -we beseech thee, to hear the 
devoid prayers of thy Church; and grant that those 
things which we ask faithfully we may obtain effectu- 
ally; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. 

Deus, refugimn nostrum et virtus: adesto pi is EcclesicE 
tuce precibus, auctor ipse pieiatis; et prcEsta itt quod -^ 
fideliter petimus, efficaciter consequaniur. Per Do- 
minum. (Geeg. Sac, Miss. Sak.) 

IN the Collect before us, the clause "we be- 
seech thee " was put in at the last Review, 
and has nothing to represent it in the original 
Latin. If jovl read the Collect without this clause, 
the meaning of it does not suffer, but it is rather 
bald, and something is lost to the ear — the rhythm 
and run of it are not so musical as at present. 

The 231'ayer, as it stands, is certainly a noble 
piece of English. But it is to be regretted that 
the point of it has been in some measure lost (as 
so often happens in our translation of the Bible) 
b}^ using different English words to express one 
and the same word in the original. To repre- 
sent the original of this Collect quite accurately 



338 TWENTY-THIRD SUNDAY 

either the prayers of the Church should have 
"been called "godly": — "O God . . . who art thy- 
self the author of all godliness, be ready to hear 
the godly prayers of thy Church;" or (which 
perhaps would have been better) God should 
have been addressed as the author, not of god- 
liness, but of devotion: — "O God . . . who art 
thyself the author of devotion, be ready to hear 
thy Church's devout prayers." The Latin is so 
worded as to suggest this most valuable truth, 
that God will and must be ready to hear the 
prayers which He Himself inspires, and puts into 
the minds of His people. 

Three points offer themselves for comment in 
the Collect — the magnificent exordium (or invo- 
cation); the prayers which God is ready to hear; 
and the prayers which He will grant. There is 
a great distinction between these two classes 
of prayers. God is ready to hear hundreds of 
prayers which He will not grant, which He could 
not grant consistently with the conditions He 
has laid down for Himself in administering the 
kingdoms of Nature, Providence, and Grace. 

(1.) The exordium, taken from the first verse 
of the forty- sixth Psalm: — "O God, our refuge 
and strength." We must look at that Psalm a 
little to appreciate the full force of this invoca- 
tion. Many commentators suppose it to refer to 
Sennacherib's invasion, and the extreme peril 
into which the kingdom of Judah was brought 
thereby. It is not absolutely certain that it re- 
fers to this particular crisis of the national his- 



AFTER TRINITY. 339 

tory, but it certainly does refer to a time of most 
urgent and imminent distress. Hezekiali sought 
God as his refuge and strength, and found Him 
to be a very present help in trouble, when, after 
reading Sennacherib's letter, he went uj) into the 
house of the Lord and spread it before the Lord, 
and prayed to be saved, for the honor of God's 
name, from the hand of the invader. . . . We 
gather then that the prayers which are princi- 
pally referred to in this Collect are prayers 
poured out by the Church when God's chasten- 
ing is upon her, — cries of distress, when men 
are " pressed out of measure above strength, so 
that they despair even of hfe." Such prayers 
are specially prescribed, and special promises 
annexed to them. Witness the following: — 
" Call upon me in the day of trouble : I will 
deliver thee, and thou shalt glorif}^ me." And 
the hundred and seventh Psalm is an enumera- 
tion of four different kinds of trouble, which 
make men fly to God as their refuge and 
strength, and out of which He delivers them. 
(2.) The second point is, the prayers which 
God is ready to hear. These are called in our 
translation "devout prayers." And, as I have 
pointed out, a reason is assigned why God should 
be " ready to hear " them — that they have, in fact, 
proceeded from Him; that He is Himself the 
author of devotion in the human heart, and 
therefore must be "ready to hear " the voice of 
devotion. But though God may smile upon the 
offerer of a devout prayer, and indeed smile upon 



340 TWENTY-THIRD SUNDAY 

tlie prayer itself, inasmuch as He loves to liave 
the heart poured out before Him, He does not 
pledge Himself to answer every devout prayer, 
or at least to answer it in the form in which it is 
offered. The Latin word, which our translators 
have rendered excellently well, "Be ready to 
hear," means literally "Be present to the devout 
prayers " — make some gracious sign of thy pres- 
ence and favorable acceptance. St. Paul's prayer 
that the thorn in the flesh, some natural infirmity, 
which greatly impeded his ministry, might de- 
part from him, could not fail to be a demut 
praj'er. It was offered by a spiritual man; the 
desire for the removal was doubtless i^rompted 
by the feeling that the infirmity in question was 
a serious drawback to his usefulness; and the 
fervor with which he made the request is indi- 
cated by the fact that he repeated it thrice: — 
"For this thing I besought the Lord thrice, 
that it might depart from me," And the Lord 
showed Himself ready to hear the devout prayer. 
He gave Him supporting grace, but He would 
not remove the thorn. " He said . . . My grace 
is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made 
perfect in weakness." St. Paul had only asked 
the removal in submission to the wisdom and 
will of his Master. And he more than acqui- 
esced in the refusal of his petition. Knowing 
now his Master's wise designs for him, he glo- 
ried in his infirmities. 

(3.) The last point is, the prayers which God 
will grant. " Grant that those things whicli we 



AFTER TRINITY. 341 

ask faithfully we may obtain effectuall}'." In one 
of the Collects at the end of the Communion 
Service we find the same request in a rather 
more expanded form. To " ask faithfully " is to 
ask in faith. But the faith which is intended in 
these places must, I apj^rehend, be something- 
more than a mere general persuasion that God 
will give us what it is best for us to have. It 
must be a q-)ecijic persuasion that this or that 
thing is according to His will, and that He means 
us to ask it, and means in some way or other to 
give it us. Doubtless there was such a persua- 
sion on the minds of the little flock, who were 
gathered together praying at the house of Mar}^ 
the mother of John during the time of St. Peter's 
imprisonment. They were persuaded that it was 
according to God's mind to deliver their Apostle. 
And they knew that their prayers were the means 
by which the blessing should accrue to them, and 
therefore offered these prayers without ceasing. 
It is not necessary to suppose that they expected 
the extraordinary mu^acle by which the result 
was brought about (for we are told that w^hen 
they opened the door and saw the Apostle "they 
were astonished "), but they doubtless did expect 
that St. Peter would be restored to them in some 
way or other, possibly by God's softening Herod's 
animosity. And they had the petitions which the}'- 
desired of God, that which they asked faithfully, 
according to His will, the}" obtained effectually. 

If God does not nowadays work miracles in 
the ordinary' sense of that term, He undoubtedly , 



342 TWENTY-FOURTH SUNDAY 

does work great marvels in the way of His ordi- 
nary Providence; and the minds of His people 
are as fully open to Him, and as accessible to 
impressions from Him, as they were in the earli- 
est ages. 



Ej}e Cbjentg'fourti) Suntiag after SCrmitg, 

Lord, ice beseech thee, absolve thy people, .from their 
offences; that through thy bouniifid goodness ice may 
all be delivered from the bands of those sins, lohich 
by our frailty we have committed: Grant this, 
heavenly Father, for Jesus Christ's sake, our blessed 
Lord and Saviour, Amen. 

Absolve, qua^sumus, T)omine, tuorum delicia popidorum; 
et a peccatorum nosirorum nexibus, gucE pro nostra 
fragilitaie contraximus, tua benignitate liberemur. 
Per Dominum. (Gkeg. Sac, Miss. Sab.) 

" /^~\ LORD, we beseech thee, absolve thy peo- 
V — ' pie;" "Stir up, we beseech thee, the wills 
of thy people." Such is the strain in which run 
the two last Collects of the Christian Year. An 
old strain, the cadences of which are familiar to 
all of us, but which we may not weary of; for it 
needs to be repeated at every break in the Chris- 
tian Life, when each day closes in, when each 
year (as now) falls into the sere and yellow leaf. 
God's sentence of acquittal for past offences, 
and the fresh spring of holy energy which the 
will makes after receiving that sentence; these 
are the two thoughts which underlie the nine- 
tieth Psalm, that "prayer of Mo^es the man 



AFTER TRINITY. 843 

of God." "O satisfy ns early with tby mercy; 
that we may rejoice and be glad all our daj^s;" 
this is the petition which the twenty-fourth Col- 
lect echoes back, in the formed ecclesiastical lan- 
guage of the Christian Church. 

" O Lord, we beseech thee, absolve." What is 
it to absolve ? It is not the same thing as to for- 
give. To absolve a man is to 2^^'onounce his sins 
forgiven. Absolution is acquittal; and acquittal 
is the sentence of a court of justice, whereby the 
prisoner at the bar is declared innocent of the 
offences charged against him, and set at hberty 
from his bonds. Absolution may be and is, in 
the order of the Church, disj^ensed b}" human 
ministers, and, when so disj^ensed, is always 
understood to be conditioned on the repentance 
and faith of the person on whom the sentence 
is pronounced. I have seen it said that it is 
God's province to forgive sins, the priest's prov- 
ince to absolve from them; but here we see that 
such a distinction by no means uniformly holds 
good. It is God, and God in the Fii'st Person, — 
"the God and Father,'" — who is here called upon 
to absolve: "0 Lord^ we beseech thee, absolve." 
Where and how does Almighty God do this? In 
the man's conscience; in his heart of hearts; tak- 
ing uj^ perhaps some comfortable word of Holy 
Scripture (for example, " Son, be of good cheer; 
thy sins be forgiven thee;" or, "The blood of 
Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin "), 
and bearing it in upon the sinner's mind, so that 
he feels it to be meant for him. O grand conso- 



344 TWENTY-FOURTH SUNDAY 

lation, to be not forgiven only, but to hear the 
sentence of forgiveness pronounced by God's 
voice in the conscience. For God must know 
infallibly whether the conditions of repentance 
and faith are fulfilled. His sentence of forgive- 
ness is the dawn, not only of hope and praise, 
but of energy in the soul. 

" Absolve the offences of tliij people." There 
is here something observable in the w^ording of 
the original Latin, the word j)eople being in the 
plural. If the reading is correct, the plural will 
indicate an enlarged spirit of intercession on the 
part of the petitioners who offer this Collect. They 
pray not for a single congregation, but for all con- 
gregations of the Universal Church spread over 
the globe, in whatever language and under what- 
ever forms they may worship, that God would 
now, when another j^ear of work, opportunity, 
and responsibihty is closing in upon us, come and 
" speak peace to His people " in every place, to 
ever}" assembly of His saints. 

" That through " (or by) " thy bountiful good- 
ness we may aU be delivered" (the "all" is due 
to the last Revisers of the Prayer Book, who 
possibly may have designed it to represent the 
plural in the word just now commented on); 
" from the handa of those sins." Bonds or 
bands, — in the literal sense of the word, the 
chains which bind a prisoner, so that he has 
not the free use of his limbs. The idea of sins 
as bonds which crij^ple the sinner is still more 
vividly brought out in one of our occasional 



AFTER TRINITY. 345 

Collects: — "Though we be tied and bound with 
the chain of our sins, vet let the pitifulness of thy 
great mercy loose us." — Now pray observe the 
exact force of this part of the prayer. There 
is no going over the same ground as before. 
The meaning is not, "O Lord, absolve us . . . 
that through thy bountiful goodness we may be 
absolved." It is as if a prisoner should say to the 
court, " Pray, acquit me, that I may be released and 
walk abroad at liberty once more." So the cul- 
prit at the heavenly tribunal pra^^s, "Speak par- 
don and j)eace to my conscience, O Judge of all 
the earth, that I may be set at liberty to serve 
thee once more, to walk before thee in the way 
of thy commandments." The absolution must 
come first, before there is, and that there may 
be, this service, this walking. A man whose 
hands and feet are clogged with a sense of un- 
forgiven sin can do nothing in the way of walk- 
ing, or working, or free service. 

But the word nexus, which is here translated 
"bands," has a second dindi figurative sense, which 
is too important to be dropped out of sight. It 
means a financial entanglement; in other words, 
a debt. The Roman law of debt was excessively 
severe, and gave the creditor power, if his claims 
were not satisfied after due warning, to sell the 
debtor into slavery; and the liability to become 
a slave, which the debtor incurred by his debt, 
was called by this word nexus. Now, our Jjord 
in the Lord's Prayer has consecrated for us this 
figure — sin under the image of a debt. The sec- 



346 TWENTY-FOURTH SUNDAY 

ond petition of the second part, literally trans- 
lated, runs thus: "And remit to us our debts, as 
we also remit to our debtors theirs." And ob- 
serve that the debt which we contract by sin is 
one which lays us open to slavery. " Whosoever 
committeth sin" (as a wilful practice and hab- 
it) "is the servant" (or slave) "of sin." The 
prayer then here is, that God would by His 
voice in their souls assure His people that He 
remits all their debts to them for Christ's sake. 
If He cancels our debts by His " bountiful good- 
ness," it is that we may be free thenceforth to 
yield to Him the loving service of our lives. 

"Which hi) our frailty we have committed." 
The literal translation is, " which according to our 
frailty we have contracted " — contracted, in refer- 
ence to the liabilities under which we have brought 
ourselves by sin. It is not simply that our frailty 
(our inheritance from Adam's fall) causes our sin; 
but that sin is the natural result of our frailty, what 
is to be expected and anticipated from it; its legit- 
imate outcome ; the evil fruit, which in the course 
of nature is brought forth by the corrupt tree. 

It oyAj remains to say that there is much sig- 
nificance and propriety in the ending of the Col- 
lect, which is more developed and expanded than 
most of the endings, and was inserted at the last 
Review. God is addressed as " our heavenly Fa- 
ther," an invocation somewhat rare in the Collects, 
but suited, if only our hearts echo it, to move 
Him to release us from the misery and entangle- 
ment of the bands of sin; and Jesus Christ is 



AFTER TRINITY. 347 

called, not our Lord only, but "our Saviour," 
doubtless to remind us that the release from our 
debts which we sue for is granted in virtue of 
His having paid them, and that, while to us it is 
an act of grace, to Him as our Head and Repre- 
sentative it is an act of justice. 



Elje Etoentg^fiftf) Suntiag after Ertnitg* 

Stir lip, we heseecJi thee, Lord, the wills of thy faith- 
ful people; that they, plenteously bringing forth the 
fruit of good works, may of thee he plenteously re- 
warded; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. 

Excita, cpicesuinus, Domine, tuorum fidelium voluntates; 
id divini operis fructuni proi^ensius exsequentes, jji- 
eiatis tuce remedia majora pei'cipiant. Per Domi- 
num. (Greg. Sac, Miss, Sae.) 

IT would naturally be supposed that the alter- 
ations of the originals, which the Reformers 
made in translating from the old Latin Office 
Books, would be in what is called the evangehcal 
direction, — that the new-fashioned prayer would 
speak more distinctly the doctrines of grace than 
the old one had done. But this is by no means 
always the case. There is a remarkable instance 
to the contrary in the Collect before us, for the 
exhibition of which it will be necessary to give a 
close translation of the original Latin, as it stands 
in the Sacramentary of Gregory. " Stir up, we 
beseech thee, O Lord, the wills of thy faithful 



348 TWENTY-FIFTH SUNDAY 

people; that tliey, more readily following after 
the effect of [thy] divine working, may obtain 
from thy fatherly goodness larger assistances. 
Through the Lord." Thus the words rendered 
"fruit of good works," really are "the fruit of 
the divine work" {divini operisfructum). "Fruit 
of the divine work," or " effect of God's working," 
at once leads our thoughts to the text, " It is God 
which worketh in 3'ou both to will and to do of 
His good pleasure," and no doubt was intended 
by the writer of the original Latin to do so. 
"Fruit of good works" exhibits our side of the 
production, but leaves out God's. The prayer 
that we may " plenteously " bring "forth the fruit 
of goo^ works " has most abundant and satisfac- 
tory Scriptural justification. Our Lord bids us 
"so let" our "light shine before men that they 
may see our good works." In making an abun- 
dance of good works the object of Christian 
prayer and effort, our religion is apt to take that 
sound, healthy, practical, English tone, which St. 
Paul in the latest period of his life seems so much 
to have appreciated, and which our Reformers, 
as true loyal-hearted Englishmen, sought to im- 
press upon the devotions of the English Church. 
If a man judge himself only by religious affec- 
tions and sentiments, there may be much room 
for deception; tangible "good works," which oth- 
ers can see, the sacrifice, for instance, of one's 
means or one's time to do good to others, are a 
surer and safer test. Thus we have every reason 
for prizing the idea of " good works," which the 



AFTER TRINITY. 349 

translation brings out much more sharply and 
distinctly than the original does. At the same 
time, in reference to the term " fruit," it is to be 
borne in mind that when St. Paul (in Gal. v.) 
describes " the fruit of the Sjoirit," or, in other 
Avords, dimni operis fructum — the fruit of God's 
operation in man's heart, — he enumerates not 
works, but only states of mind. He does not say, 
" The fruit of the Sj)ii'it is prayer, fasting, alms- 
giving, feeding the hungry', clothing the naked, 
visiting the sick, instructing the ignorant, con- 
soling the downcast," and so forth. This " fruit 
of the Spirit" is beautifully contrasted with "the 
works of the flesh," part of the contrast being 
implied in the dissimilar words " works " and 
"fruit"; works giving the idea of that which is 
toilsome, laborious, and demanding an effort; 
fruit of that which is the produce of an inner 
life, — something yielded peaceably, gently, noise- 
lessly, gradually, and in due season. 

But to revert to the translation and our criti- 
cism of it. One sees why the translators wrote 
"bringing forth the fruit," rather than what they 
found in the original — exequentes fructum — "fol- 
lowing after the fruit." The latter expression 
would have been in English a confusion of meta- 
phor. An object or end is followed after. Fruit 
is not followed after, but brought forth. But in 
Latin the wovdfructus, which is the origin of our 
" fruit," does not necessarily carry our thoughts 
to trees or vegetable produce; its root-meaning 
is enjoyment; and thence it comes to signif}" the 



350 TWENTY-FIFTH SUNDAY 

means of any sort of enjoyment, any good result 
(or effect, or consequence) of any kind. So here 
the Hteral translation would be, "that we, follow- 
ing after the result of the divine Avorking in the 
heart " (not content, that is, with the conscious- 
ness that such a work is going on, but earnest to 
see its results and evidences in our own life and 
conversation), "may obtain from thy fatherly 
goodness larger assistances " (properly the assist- 
ances of medical skill), remedia major a. There is 
no indication, you see, here of "plenteous re- 
ward"; the idea is altogether different. The 
idea of a plenteous reward for good works is in- 
deed j)erfectly Scriptural. But the "larger as- 
sistances," of the Latin Collect, which w^e may 
obtain by greater and more earnest endeavors 
after the fruit of the Spirit, are the assistances 
which our Heavenly Father always gives to His 
children, when He sees them striving in the pur- 
suit of holiness. These assistances consist in the 
remedial efficacy of the blood and grace of Christ, 
constantly apj^lied to the soul; and the doctrine 
conveyed in this clause of the Latin Collect is, 
that they will be applied in larger measure, in pro- 
portion as our pursuit of holiness, our cultivation 
of the fruit of the Spirit, is more earnest, prompt, 
and diligent. The more energetically we strive 
after high attainments, the more help we shall 
receive from God's fatherly goodness. 

One word, in conclusion, upon the main peti- 
tion of this admirable prayer. " Stir up, we be- 
seech thee, O Lord, the wills of thy faithful peo- 



AFTER TRINITY. 351 

pie." It is a grand, vigorous word, this " Stir 
up." Who that knows anything of his own heart 
does not know that the great disease of the will 
is its letharq-y; that even when its main bias is 
right, it is a2)t to relapse, with fatal facility, into 
slumber. How does God stir up the will. Ob- 
serve that He only stirs up or rouses, never 
forces it. A fire when stirred up does not always 
blaze; stir it as you maj", it is sometimes quenched. 
A sleeper, when roused, does not alwa3's arise; 
sometimes he turns on his side, folds his hands, 
and composes himself to sleejD again. Man is 
under no compiLhion to move, when God stirs up 
his will : whether he shall move or not, is a ques- 
tion which can be decided only by the will itself. 
It is stirred uj) whenever, by the influence of the 
Holy Spirit, the affections of hope, fear, compunc- 
tion, love, are so quickened as to give right im- 
pulses to the moral nature. Which of us can 
truly say that such right impulses have never 
been given to him ? Which of us can say that, 
when they have been given, he has uniformly 
followed after the higher attainments to which 
they have invited and aUured him ? 



352 ON THE SAINTS' DAY COLLECTS. 



©w tl}e Saints' ©aj) Collects* 

There is one God, and one mediator between God and 
men, the man Christ Jesus. — 1 Tim. ii. 5. 

THE Cliurcli of England observes twenty 
claj^s in all in memory of certain New 
Testament Saints, who may be called tlie lead- 
ing characters of the Gospels and Acts. Three 
of these Festivals are merely satellites of Christ- 
mas Day, attending upon that greater Festival, 
and closely linked to it in thought. Their Col- 
lects, Epistles, and Gospels, therefore follow, in 
our Service Book, immediately after those ap- 
pointed for Christmas. The remaining seventeen 
come altogether, in the order of their observance, 
at the end of the Sundays after Trinity. Those 
who compare our present prayers with their Latin 
originals in the pre-E,eformation OfHces of the 
Church, are struck by the fact, that the large ma- 
jority of the Saints' Day Collects have no Latin 
originals; in other words, that they were made 
new by the Reformers. Two of them, indeed 
(those for the Purification and Annunciation), are 
drawn from the Sacramentary of Gregory. Two 
more (those for the Conversion of St. Paul, and 
for St. Bartholomew), though based on ancient 
Collects, were materially altered by our Reformers. 
Of the remaining thirteen, twelve made their first 
appearance in King Edward's First Book of Com- 



ON THE SAINTS' DAY COLLECTS. 353 

mon Prayer, put forth in 1549, while one (that 
for the Festival of St. Andrew) appeared first in 
the Second Prayer Book, three years afterAvards, 
in Heu of an earlier one, which the Reformers in- 
deed had composed, but which they saw reason 
to discard on more mature deliberation. 

Now, why was this ? The reason is, that the 
Collects of these Latin Offices were for the most 
part hopelessly corrupt. And their corruptness 
consisted in this, that almost all of them, though 
not directly addressed to Saints, yet asked for 
some Saint's intercession with God. Take, as a 
single specimen, the pre-Reformation Collect for 
St. Andi-ew's Day, which is found in the Missal 
of Sarum. It runs as follows: "We humbly im- 
plore thy Majesty, O Lord, that as the blessed 
Apostle Andrew appeared [upon earth] as a 
preacher and a ruler of thy Church, so he may 
be for us a perpetual intercessor with thee [in 
heaven]. Through." 

Now, before we take up the Saints' Day Col- 
lects one by one, it will be well to show how 
petitions of this kind can never be justified by 
what Romanists allege in favor of them, and 
what a debt of gratitude, therefore, we owe to 
our Reformers for sweejoing them away. 

And the question is not whether dej^arted 
saints do, as a fact, pray for the Church upon 
earth, or for particular members of it; but 
whether we are justified in formally soliciting 
their prayers. Very little is revealed to us re- 
specting their state, and that little "in a glass. 



354 ON THE SAINTS' DAY COLLECTS. 

darkly-; " but whatever it may be, and however 
at present incomprehensible to us, it is impos- 
sible to su^Dpose that death has eradicated from 
their bosoms all thoughts of and care for the 
Church upon earth. To take a single example, 
is it conceivable that St. Paul should not have 
carried with him out of life his burning love of 
souls, and his solicitude for the spread of Christ's 
Gospel ? Indeed, it would be an implicit denial 
of the doctrine of the Communion of Saints, to 
doubt that saints in Paradise pour out their souls 
to the same Saviour as ourselves, and under the 
prompting of the same Spirit, only with much 
more fervor, and with a more sensible nearness 
of approach than is competent to us in our pres- 
ent state. But it is a wholly different thing to 
say, that we are warranted in asking for the in- 
tercession of departed Saints, and putting our- 
selves under their patronage; this last being, 
indeed, a step beyond asking for their interces- 
sioUj but yet flowing naturally out of it. What 
possible warrant is there, either in reason or 
Scripture, for such petitions ? As to the fervent 
desires entertained by departed Saints for the 
spread of the Gospel and the advance of Christ's 
kingdom, it must be superfluous to ask them to 
utter these; for assuredly they do utter them 
before God in such manner as is competent to 
them, and suitable to their condition. And as 
to the intercessions supposed to be offered by 
them for particular persons, utterly unknown 
to them in the flesh, and livinq- long ages aft^r 



ON THE SAINTS' DAY COLLECTS. 355 

their decease, what reason is there for thinking 
that they know, or can know, anything of such 
persons? It is almost investing St. Paul, St. 
Peter, and the rest, with the attribute of om- 
niscience, to imagine that they are acquainted 
with the circumstances, character, and trials of 
every Christian who, in the nineteenth centur}^ 
asks to be aided by their intercessions. If, in- 
deed, God's Word anywhere authorized our seek- 
ing for the intercessions of departed Saints on 
our behalf, then we should be bound to use 
petitions resembling those in the old Saints' Day 
Collects, however little our natural reason might 
go along with them. But there is nowhere a 
single vestige of any such authorization. Nay, 
we find one emphatic text, which seems to place 
a bar on the practice of invoking saints and seek- 
ing their intercessions: "There is one God, and 
one mediator between God and men, the man 
Christ Jesus." The oneness of God, and the 
oneness of the Mediator between God and men, 
are put on a level, as co-ordinate truths; if one 
of them is fundamental, we are led to think that 
the other is also. And be it observed, that the 
context shows the Apostle to be speaking of me- 
diation by intercession, and not merety by atone- 
ment; for he is led up to the observation by the 
precept which he had just given, that "j)rayers, 
intercessions, and giving of thanks," should " be 
made for all men." — But the Romish theologians 
rest their defence of the practice on this very 
circumstance, that men are so constantly en- 



356 ON THE SAINTS' DAY COLLECTS. 

joined in Holy Scripture to pray for one an- 
other. The Apostles, they say, frequently ask 
the prayers of others for them. If, it is argued, 
we may and ought to seek the prayers of saints 
'now in the flesh, how can it be unlawful still to 
seek the assistance of their prayers, when they have 
passed to their rest "? For the Catechism of the 
Council of Trent expressly says: "That whereas 
prayer to God is a direct application to Him to 
bestow blessings upon us, or to deliver us from 
evil, the invocation of saints, on the other hand, 
is merely asking the assistance of their prayers, 
just as we might ask such assistance from a liv- 
ing friend, and therefore alwaj^s runs in this 
style: 'Holy Mary,' or ' Holy Peter,' — not 'have 
mercy upon us,' 'hear us,' but — 'j)ray for us.'" 
But the slightest reflection shows that the two 
cases are wholly different. To ask the praj^era 
of living friends is a practice attended with no 
moral danger whatever. Our living friends are 
by our side; and their manifest faults and frail- 
ties, as well as the rubs, frets, and contradictions, 
which int*3rcourse with them involves, are quite 
sufficient to prevent us from regarding them 
with any undue veneration. But it is quite 
otherwise with de^jarted saints. As soon as 
they are removed from us, we begin to ideal- 
ize them. Then all the idolatrous tendencies of 
the natural heart come into play freely. We for- 
get that even the holiest of them, even the Blessed 
Virgin herself, only entered Paradise as a for- 
given sinner, accepted freely on the sole ground 



ON THE SAINTS' DAY COLLECTS. 357 

of the sacrifice and righteousness of the Son of 
God. And the eventual result is a clinging 
to the patronage and intercession of saints; 
which, it may be feared, even in well-disposed 
minds, prejudices the prerogative of the one 
Mediator, — tends to eclipse that Sun of Eight- 
eousness, from whom alone these planets of the 
SjDiritual firmament derive all their lustre. 

In conclusion, it needs to be pointed out, that 
the Reformation of the sixteenth century may 
justly and properly be termed a profiting of the 
Church by her past experience. The Church 
had much doleful experience, at the time of the 
Reformation, of the abuses and corruptions in- 
volved in the Invocation of Saints, and in many 
other parts of the then religious S3'stem. As a 
simple matter of fact, the homage paid to Mary 
and the Saints, had obscured in the minds, both 
of high and low, the one God and the one Me- 
diator. Ten Ave Marias were said for one Pater 
noster. The Christian Church had gone as near 
as she could to the. heathen practice of raising 
dej)arted men and women to a place among the 
gods, and had peopled the courts of heaven with 
a crowd of deities of a lower grade, suj^posed, 
forsooth, to be more accessible, and to have more 
sympathy with human infirmities, than He who 
took a sinless manhood into union with His Deity, 
that He might suffer and die for us all. It was 
a monstrous usurpation and corruption; but it 
all sprang from a practice which, in its begin- 
nings, seemed to superficial minds harmless 



358 ST. ANDREW'S DAY. 

enough, aud even religious, — the practice of 
asking the prayers of glorified saints on our 
behalf. And our warmest thanks are due to 
the Reformers for having left standing, in the 
Book of Common Prayer, no other recognition 
of the blessed dead than that which is altogether 
Scriptural and primitive,- — thankfulness for the 
graces exhibited by them, and prayer that we 
may be enabled so to follow their example as 
they followed Christ. 



Almighti/ God, who dkhl give sucli grace unto ihy holy 
Ajjostle Saint Andrew, thai he readih/ obeyed the 
calling of thy Son Jesus Christ, and followed Him 
without delay; Grant unto us all, that ice, being 
called by thy holy Word, may forthwith give up 
ourselves obediently to fulfil thy holy commandments; 
through the same Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. 
(a. d'. 1552.) 

THE first Prayer Book of the Reformed 
Church was put forth in 1549. In the 
course of the three following years the Reforma- 
tion movement made an advance, and our Re- 
formers, under the influence, and by the sug- 
gestion of, foreign divines, came to think that 
the Service Book of the English Church should 
be further altered in a Protestant direction. 
Whether the Book of 1552 is generally an im- 
provement on that of 1549, is a fair question, 



ST. ANDREWS DAY. 359 

aud one which will be settled difterently accord- 
ing to the theological views of the person who 
has to settle it; but I think there can be little 
doubt that the Collect for St. Andrew's Day in 
the later book is better than that in the earlier; 
and it is very interesting to consider why the 
Reformers discarded their ow^n handiwork of 
three years ago. The earlier Collect ran thus: 
" Almight}' God, Avhich hast given such grace to 
thy Apostle saint Andrew, that he counted the 
sharp and painful death of the cross to be an 
high honor, and a great glor}^: Grant us to take 
and esteem all troubles and adversities which 
shall come unto us for th}^ sake, as things 
profitable for us towards the obtaining of ever- 
lasting life: through Jesus Christ our Lord." It 
is a law of prayer, exemj^lified very beautifully 
and very copiously in the Collects of the Church, 
that it must be built upon a foundation. In the 
Sunday Collects this foundation is nsuallysome 
doctrine of God's Holy Word. In the Saints' 
Day Collects, on the other hand, the foundation 
on which the prayer is built is almost always 
some fact connected with the history of the 
saint. Now, our Reformers seem to have felt, 
that if we are to pray with assured confidence 
of our prayers being granted, they should be 
built, not on a sandy foundation, but on a rock; 
not on a questionable doctrine or a doubtful 
fact. And the fact of St. Andrew's crucifixion 
is doubtful. It is legend rather than regular 
history. The address with which he saluted his 



360 ST. ANDREW'S DAY. 

cross, wlien. lie first came in sight of it, to the 
effect, that since the cross had been consecrated 
by the body of Christ, and of many members 
of His, it was a high honor and a great glory 
to hang upon it, — is no doubt very beautiful and 
edifying; but who shall say for certain that it 
was ever uttered? In the absence of any in- 
spired account of the deaths of the holy Apostles, 
the imagination of the early Christians sought 
to supply the void by drawing up apocryphal 
Acts of the Apostles, which, if they may be sup- 
posed to have some foundation in fact, were, at 
all events, tricked out very largely with fiction. 
Lipsius, a celebrated Belgian scholar at the time 
of the Reformation, who wrote a treatise on the 
cross, questioned whether St. Andrew's cross was 
the X shaped instrument which tradition has as- 
signed to him. One reason which he alleges for 
his doubt is, that there was another tradition as 
to the method of St. Andrew's death, namely, that 
he was crucified on the straight trunk of an olive 
tree; and the beautiful story, harmonizing with 
this last tradition, of St. Andrew's tomb, on each 
anniversary of his martyrdom, sending forth a 
stream of fragrant oil, which was an infallible 
specific for such sick persons as were anointed 
with it, has all the flavor of an ecclesiastical fable. 
Now, the Reformers did well surely in cutting away 
from the Liturgy all reference to such facts respect- 
ing them as are not guaranteed by Holy Scripture. 
"Almighty God, who didst give such grace 
unto thy holy Apostle Andrew, that he readily 



ST. ANDREW'S DAY. 361 

obeyed the calling of thy Son Jesus Christ, and 
followed Him without delay." Though the call 
of Christ, when it was made to St. Andrew, was 
23rompth' and instantaneously obeyed, the work 
of grace had been long progressing in his heart 
before this crisis was reached. It is St, Matthew 
who gives us an account of the of&cial call of 
Simon and Andrew. But from St. John we learn 
that both of them were acquainted with Christ, 
and were believers in Him, before the period of 
their official call. St. Andrew, he tells us, had 
been a discii^le of the Baptist. Under the influ- 
ence of this preparatory ministry he had become 
a serious and earnest man, had broken oft" bad 
courses, and given to the needy according to his 
abiKt3\ But the next step was greatly in ad- 
vance of this. One day, as Andrew and another 
disciple were standing by the Baptist, our Lord 
passed by. The Baptist pointing Him out as the 
Lamb of God predicted b}" Isaiah, which taketh 
awa}^ the sins of the world, the two disciples 
were drawn by this attractive testimony to fol- 
low Jesus. He saw them following, and invited 
them to come to His abode. They accepted the 
invitation, slept under the same roof, and were 
so impressed by all they heard and saw, that re- 
pentance, to which God's grace had previously 
brought them, blossomed into faith, and they be- 
heved Him to be the Messiah, — God's Anointed 
One. Andrew's persuasion of this was so strong, 
that he immediately went in search of his brother 
and partner Simon, and introduced him to this 



362 ST. ANDREW'S DAY. 

newly-found Messiali, so tliat Andrew may rea- 
sonably be called the first missionary; and, ac- 
cordingly, the portion of Scripture appointed for 
the Epistle is a great missionary passage of the 
Epistle to the Romans: "How shall they hear 
without a preacher? . . . How beautiful are 
the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace." 
It should be added, that in view of the facts of 
St. Andrew and St. Peter being the first-called 
of our Lord's Apostles, and of St. Andrew, on a 
previous occasion, having found our Lord before 
St. Peter did, and having made his brother known 
to Christ, — he has always been regarded as the 
first-called of the disciples. And this circum- 
stance must have added much to the difficulty of 
obeying the call, and to the measure of grace re- 
quu-ed in order to induce him to obey it. When 
all our friends and relations, all the society in 
which we live, are following Christ with one ac- 
cord, there is then no great trial in following 
Him; we have only to swim with the stream. 
But to come out from the world and be separate 
and singular, and to profess oneself His faithful 
soldier and servant, when the many are indiffer- 
ent, and some hostile and antagonistic; — this re- 
quires deep conviction and strong principles : and 
this, perhaps, is the force of that expression with 
which the Collect opens: "Who didst give such 
grace," — so large a measure of it, — "unto thy 
holy Apostle Andrew, that he readily obeyed the 
calling of thy Son Jesus Christ, and followed 
Him without delay." 



ST. ANDREW'S BAY. 363 

" Grant unto us all, that we, being called by 
thy holy Word." St. Andrew was called by the 
Personal Word, the Word of whom St. John 
speaks at the opening of his Gospel: "In the 
beginning was the Word, and the Word was 
with God, and the Word was God." We are 
called by the written Word, which has many and 
intimate relations with the Personal Word, and 
which the Church, — represented by our parents, 
guardians, and jDastors,— places in our hands as 
soon as we are of an age to understand anything 
of its teaching. But as it was with St. Andrew, 
so it is with us. 

" May forthwith give up ourselves obediently 
to fulfil thy holy commandments," — not "may 
fulfil thy holy commandments," but " may give 
up ourselves to fulfil them; " which surrender of 
spii'it, soul, and body, to the keeping of the com- 
mandments, can only be made in the spirit of 
love, — love to God above all, and love to our 
neighbor as to ourselves. And "forthwith," — a 
word full of significance: "I made haste, and de- 
lajed not," says the Psalmist, " to keep thy com- 
mandments." There was no other "difference," 
says Bishop Cowper (quoted in Neale on the 
Psalms), " between the wise and foolish vii-gins, 
but that the wise did in time what the foohsh 
wished to do out of time, but were not able." 
"Behold, now is the accepted time ! " 



364 ST. THOMAS THE APOSTLE. 



$t* Efjomas tf)e ^[jjostle. 

Almiglity and everliving God, lolio for tlie more co7i- 
firmation of the faith didst suffer thy holy Apostle 
Thomas to he doubtful in thy Soji^s resurrection; 
Grant us so perfectly, and without all doubt, to be- 
lieve in thy Son Jesus Christ, that our faith in thy 
sight may never he reproved. Hear us, Lord, 
through the same Jesus Christ, to tohom, loith thee 
and the Holy Ghost, he all honor and glory, now 
and for evermore. Amen. (a. d. 1549.) 

THIS Collect made its first appearance in 
1549 in place of an earlier one, wliich 
spoke of our being assisted by tire patronage of 
St. Thomas, in requital of an exulting celebra- 
tion of bis festival. The Epistle and Gospel un- 
derwent no change, with the exception of an ad- 
dition to the latter of the two last verses of St. 
John XX. These verses generalized the lesson 
to be learned from the doubting of St. Thomas, 
and were originally the close of St. John's Gos- 
pel, the twenty-first chapter being a postscript 
added afterwards. The Evangelist having re- 
corded our Lord's interview with St. Thomas — 
the last incident he proposed to narrate — goes 
on to say that all he had written was designed to 
do for Christian people in general what that in- 
terview had done for St. Thomas, — confirm them 
in the faith, — " And many other signs truly did 
Jesus in the presence of His disciples, which are 
not written in this book. But these are written, 



ST. THOMAS THE APOSTLE. 365 

that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, 
the Son of God; and that, believing, ye might 
have life through His name." 

"Almighty and everliving God, who, for the 
more confirmation of the faith didst suffer thy 
holy Aj^ostle Thomas to be doubtful in thy Son's 
resurrection." 

(1.) "To be doubtful." Mark these words as 
explanatory of the Apostle's state of mind. St. 
Thomas was not an unbeliever, but a doubter. 
There is good evidence that he loved our Lord 
with a desperate and clinging attachment: for it 
was he who, when Christ was about to throw 
Himself, as it seemed, into the jaws of death, said 
to his fellow-disciples, " Let us also go^ that we 
may die with Him." He never made up his mind 
that the evidence against the Resurrection pre- 
ponderated over that in favor of it, which would 
have constituted him an unbeliever; he merely 
required more evidence than he had already re- 
ceived (herein being unreasonable and wrong; 
for had not his Master said He w^ould rise again ?) 
before giving in his assent to it. And it should 
be observed, that the words in which Christ re- 
proves him are not accurately translated. They 
should be, not — "^e not faithless, but believ- 
ing," but — ''Become not faithless, but believing." 
Thomas's mind was poised midway between be- 
lief and unbelief; he was a doubter. Our Lord 
warns him of the danger of doubting, and in ef- 
fect says to him, " Let not those doubts harden 
down into unbelief, but thaw away under the 



366 ST. THOMAS THE APOSTLE. 

light now vouclisafed unto thee, and resolve 
themselves into faith." 

(2.) "Who for the more confirmation of the 
faith didst suffer thy holy Apostle Thomas to be 
doubtful in thy Son's resurrection." These words 
exhibit in the briefest possible compass both 
God's attitude in regard to sin, and the use 
which He is pleased to make of it. It is an atti- 
tude of simple sufferance — nothing more. He 
has nothing to do with originating or producing 
it; sin is a defiance of Him, a counteraction of 
His beneficent designs, and He is always, by the 
necessity of His nature, in direct antipathy to it; 
but He permits it to take place. God being Him- 
self virtue, goodness, and wisdom, seems to have ' 
sought for a display of these qualities among His 
creatures. And He could not have given an op- 
portunity for the display of virtue, without giv- 
ing at the same time an opportunity for the dis- 
play of vice. Therefore He " suffered " vice or 
moral evil. And moral evil brought physical 
evil, sorrow, and death in its train. — But the 
words also point at the use which God is pleased 
to make of sin. From the sinful doubts of St. 
Thomas He drew a confirmation of the faith. 
He can, and does, overrule sin for good. He 
overruled the crucifixion of Christ, the act by 
which man showed the deadliest antagonism to 
God, to the salvation of the human race. St. 
Thomas lost something considerable, by absent- 
ing himself from his brethren in a spirit of doubt 
and scepticism on the evening of the first Easter 



ST. THOMAS THE APOSTLE. 3G7 

Day. He did not at that time (though doubtless 
this loss was made up to him afterwards) receive 
the Apostolic mission, nor was his cheek fanned 
by the breath of the risen Saviour, as He bade 
His followers receive the Hol}^ Ghost, and sanc- 
tioned their sentence in the remission and reten- 
tion of sins. And the ensuing week, which was 
to his colleagues one of joy and sanguine hope, 
he must have passed in a moody clogged suUen- 
ness, which is the most unhappy of all states of 
mind. 

(3.) But how did God overrule St. Thomas's 
doubts to the more confirmation of the faith ? It 
is natural to ask, in reading the accounts of the 
stupendous miracle of Christ's Resurrection, " Did 
none of the disciples at the time question the 
fact, or require further evidence to satisfy him of 
it? It would not be very difficult to persuade 
simple Galilean peasants or fishermen, and a few 
enthusiastic women, over whose minds Jesus had 
gained au absolute mastery, to believe anything 
Avhich he had led them to anticipate." So we 
might have reasoned, had not God "for the more 
confirmation of the faith suffered St. Thomas to be 
doubtful in his Son's resurrection." St. Thomas's 
doubts Avere so comj^letel}'' swept away by his in- 
terview with the Saviour, that he was ashamed, 
when Christ offered him the proof which he had 
demanded, to avail himself of the offer; he neither 
put his finger into the print of the nails, nor thrust 
his hand into the Lord's side ; Christ had shown a 
perfect knowledge of what he had so unworthily 



368 ^7; THOMAS THE APOSTLE. 

said, and that instance of omniscience was enougli 
to convince him; and being convinced, he made up 
for his hesitation by avowing further and deeper 
convictions than any of the others had yet avowed; 
he recognized Christ directly and exphcitly as l\h 
God: "Thomas answered and said unto him, My 
Lord and my God." 

" Grant us so perfectl}^, and without all doubt, 
to believe in thy Son Jesus Christ, that our faith 
in thy sight may iiever be reproved." " AVithout 
all doubt." There is no merit in doubts, as some 
who pride themselves on their critical and specu- 
lative j)ower seem to fancy. On the contrary, there 
is sin in doubts, wherever a reasonable amount of 
evidence for the truth has been vouchsafed to us, 
and God always gives a reasonable amount of evi- 
dence, when He requires belief. Persons of edu- 
cated and philosophical minds must strive and 
pray to be free from that conceit, which so often 
inclines them to regard objections and difficulties 
as a mark of intellectual power, and to depreciate 
approved lines of Christian evidence as obsolete 
and needing to be abandoned. Some lines of evi- 
dence may have been unduly and disproportion- 
ately magnified; but if they are in themselves 
sound, they should not be abandoned. There 
are many lines of evidence, all of which converge 
to the great conclusion, and it is their cumulative 
force which constitutes the strongest argument 
for our holy religion. To disparage any of them, 
then, is simply to weaken or cut away one of the 
props on which religion rests, and thus to en- 



THE CONVERSION OF ST. PAUL. 369 

courage in ourselves and others those doubts, 
which are clouds on the clear firmament of a 
" perfect " faith, and which shut out the beams of 
the " Sun of righteousness," and hinder us from 
havino- "lite through His name." 



Cfje Con&erston of $t* ^aul 

God, who, tliroiKjli tlie prencliing of the blessed Apostle 
Saint Paul, hast caused the light of the Gospel to shine 
throughout the world; Grant, we beseech thee, thai ice, 
having his wonderful conversion in remembrance, 
may show forth our thankfulness unto thee for the 
same, by following the holy doctrine lohich lie taught; 
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. 

Deus, qui universum mundum beatl PauU apostoli tut 
prcedicatione docuisti; da nobis, qucesumus, ut qui 
ejus hodie conversionem colimus, per ejus ad te e:c- 
empla qradiamur. Per. (Gkeg. Sac, IVIiss. Sah.) 

SAINTS' Days are usually observed on the 
day of a saint's martyrdom or death, as 
being in the Christian point of view the anniver- 
sary of his entrance upon a new and better life. 
In the mediaeval Offices the martja'dom or death 
of a saint is called his natalitia, that is, his birth- 
day-entertainment, the notion being that the pas- 
sage of his soul into Paradise is truly a birth into 
a new world, where he is greeted by those who 
have gone before him, and where, Ij'ing in his 
Master's bosom, he drinks with Him and them 
the "new wine of the kingdom." In the English 



370 THE CONVERSION OF ST. PAUL. 

Calendar, however, there are three exceptions to 
this general rule. The two facts of the Blessed 
Virgin's history chosen for commemoration are 
those which call attention rather to her Divine 
Son than to herself, — the Annunciation to her of 
Him, and the Presentation in the Temple by her 
of Him. St. John Baptist's nativit}^, as having 
been not only itself out of the ordinary course of 
nature, but also a great epoch in the religious his- 
tor}^ of the world, is observed by us instead of the 
day of his death. And St. Paul's conversion, as 
having been effected in a manner so stupendous, 
and having been productive of such large results 
to the future of Christianity, is also observed in 
lieu of the anniversary of his martyrdom. 

Cranmer's translation of the old Collect for the 
Conversion of St. Paul is certainly an improvement 
upon the original, which is found in Gregory's 
Sacramentary. It has more point, inasmuch as it 
carries into the petition of the Collect the thought 
of the teaching of St. Paul, which appears in its 
earlier part. Thus it ran : " God, which hast taught 
all the world, through the preaching of thy blessed 
Apostle Saint Paul: Grant, we beseech thee, that 
we, which have his wonderful conversion in remem- 
brance, may follow and fulfil the holy doctrine 
that he taught: through Jesus Christ our Lord." 

In the hands of the Revisers of 1661 Cranmer's 
Collect has lost point, while at the same time it 
has been enriched and enlarged. 

" O God, who, through the preaching of the 
blessed Apostle Saint Paul." The great function 



THE CONVERSION OF ST. PAUL. 371 

of St. Paul's ministry was preaching. Of the two 
great departments of the Christian Ministr}', the 
Word and the Sacraments, the former, not the 
latter, was his province. " Christ sent me not to 
baj^tize," says he, "but to preach the Gospel." 
Christ sent St. Paul not so much to baptize as to 
preach the Gospel; admission to membershij) in 
the body of Christ might be given quite as effec- 
tively by the least gifted deacon of the Church as 
by St. Paul; and, had he baptized his own converts, 
some show of reason might have been given to the 
charge that he was gathering disciples for him- 
self, not for his Master. His line and province 
was that, for which he had been specially en- 
dowed — preaching and teaching. And hence we 
find that both preaching and teaching are the 
functions ascribed to him in the Collect for his 
Festival. 

" Hast caused the light of the Gospel to shine 
throughout the world." But were not the other 
Apostles, as well as St. Paul, instruments em- 
ployed by God in bringing about this blessed 
result ? Was not the commission given to the 
original eleven a commission to teach all nations, 
to preach the Gospel to every creature? Un- 
questionably; but St. Paul, though "born out of 
due time " into the glorious company, is the typ- 
ical and representative missionary to the heathen; 
of the acts of any other Apostles, save him and St. 
Peter, we have no inspired account, and we are 
therefore led to believe that his single ministry is 
a short abstract and summary of all that it is nee- 



372 THE CONVERSION OF ST. PAUL. 

essary for us to know, as to the way in which 
the evangelization of the world was effected. The 
vastness of the area of his preaching, — due in some 
measure to his principle of avoiding those fields of 
missionary labor on which others had entered pre- 
viously, — is often alluded to by himself. And the 
history of the Acts carries St. Paul to Rome, the 
mistress of the world, the seat of arts and civili- 
zation, in whose streets from time to time were 
to be met foreigners from all the provinces of the 
empire, however remote. When the world was 
all under one empire, to preach the Gosj)el in the 
seat of that one empire was to preach it to the 
world. 

" Grant, we beseech thee, that we, having his 
wonderful conversion in remembrance," not his 
death, though we surely believe that Christ was 
"magnified in his body" by the death, as He was 
by the life and labors, of the Apostle. Of his 
death, however. Holy Scripture takes no notice; 
the inspired history of his acts is not carried 
down so far. But of his conversion we have three 
accounts, one from his companion in travel, St. 
Luke, and two, which St. Luke has preserved, 
from his own lips, — a circumstance which goes 
to show the great importance of that event, and 
how much of God's plan for the salvation of man- 
kind turned upon it. If, therefore, only one day 
can be assigned for the commemoration of St. 
Paul, we doubtless do right in choosing the day 
of his conversion, which the Holy Ghost in Scrip- 
ture has thought so memorable, in preference to 



THE CONVERSION OF ST. PAUL. 373 

the day of his martyrdom, of which the Scripture 
has given us no account. 

" May show forth our thankfulness unto thee 
for the same." These words were inserted by 
the Revisers of 1661; and a happy insertion tliey 
are. AVhat do we owe, or rather what do we not 
owe, to the conversion of St. Paul! It was he 
who, at the midnight entreaty from the man of 
Macedonia, carried the Gospel across the Archi- 
pelago into our OAvn quarter of the globe, and 
gathered into God's granar}^ the first-fruits of 
Europe, in the persons of Lydia the proselyte 
and of the heathen jailer at PhihjDpi. We know 
that he contemplated a missionary journey to 
Spain; and there is a tradition that he even pene- 
trated to Britain; and, if so, it was through his 
instrumentality, in the first instance, that the na- 
tives of our remote island were " brought out of 
darkness and error into the clear light and true 
knowledge of God, and of His Son Jesus Christ." 
The way to show forth our thankfulness to God 
for St. Paul's conversion, and for those Apostolic 
labors which were the fruit of it, is " by follow- 
ing the holy doctrine which he taught." In one 
not unimportant respect, this expression is more 
comprehensive than the " following his example " 
of the Latin CoUect. To follow St. Paul's example 
would indicate Christian practice and nothing 
more. To follow his doctrine (that is his teach- 
ing) embraces not only Christian practice, but 
the reception of the truths which he insisted on 
a3 the root and spring of practice. 



374 THE PURIFICATION OF 

THE PRESENTATION OF CHEIST IN THE TEMPLE, 

COMMONLY CALLED, 

Efje Purification of St* JHarg t{}e Uirgiit* 

Almighty and everliving God, ive humhly heseecJt thy 
Majesty, that, a,s thy oaly-hegotten Son loas this day 
presented in the temple in substance of om" flesh, 
so we may he presented unto thee ivith pure and clean 
hearts, by the same thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord, 
Amen. 

Omnipotens sempiterne Deus, majestaiem tuani suppUces 
exoramus, tit sicut Unigenitus FUius tuus hodierna 
die cum nostra carnis substantia in templo est prcesen- 
iatus, ita nos facias purificatis tibi mentibus prcesen- 
tari. Per eundem. (Geeg. Sac, Miss. Sab.) 

IT was Bishop Cosin, wlio at the last Revision 
prefixed to this Collect the alternative title, 
"The Presentation of Christ in the Temple." 
In Gregory's Sacramentarj, where the Collect 
in its present shape is first found, the Festival is 
called " Hypapante " (or " Meeting,") a title which 
points to the incident of the meeting between 
Simeon and Christ, as that which is the leading- 
thought of the day. The Festival of " Hypapante " 
was reckoned in the Greek Church as a festival 
of our Lord; and it was not until the ninth cen- 
tury (three hundred years after the first institu- 
tion of the Day) that the Roman Pontiffs gave it 
the name of the Purification of St. Mary. Cosin's 
alternative title, therefore, was more or less a re- 
currence to the principles of antiquity. The Col- 



ST. MARY THE VIRGIN. 375 

lect to Avliich the title is prefixed makes not the 
smallest direct mention of the Blessed Virgin, or 
her purification; the great event commemorated 
by the Festival — that to which all other incidents 
of the same day were only subordinate — is the 
Presentation of Christ in the Tem23le. The first 
aj)pearance of the Lord of the temple in the tem- 
ple — that temj^le which He loved so fondly, that 
He could not in His boyhood tear Himself away 
from it, and which He honored so highly as to 
cleanse it t"v\ice from desecration — was an event 
of such imj)ortance as to be predicted in prophecy, 
in the j)assage appointed for the Epistle of this 
day: "The Lord, whom ye seek" (Simeon and 
Anna were seeking Him at the time), " shall sud- 
denly come to His temple; even the messenger 
of the covenant, whom jo, delight in; behold, He 
shall come, saith the Lord of hosts." The using 
this title for the Festival rather than the other 
makes the interest of the day centre in our Blessed 
Lord (as it should do), not in His Virgin mother. 
True ; the Virgin's j^nrification according to the 
law of Moses, by means of the legal sacrifice ap- 
pointed for poor peojole (" a pair of turtle-doves, 
or two young pigeons"), was an incident of the 
day, and one by no means uninteresting or that 
may be dropped out of sight. But even accord- 
ing to the Law, this was an occasion in which 
the interest circling round the child would rather 
throw into the shade that attaching to the mo- 
ther. For this was not only the legal purification 
of a w^oman, but purification after the hirth of a 



376 THE PURIFICATION OF 

first-born son, a fact to which St. Luke calls spe- 
cial attention in his account of the matter. It 
does not appear that there was any presentation 
of a child to the Lord, unless it was the first child 
and a boy, though in every case of childbirth 
there was a legal sacrifice for the purification of 
the mother. The reason why first-born sons 
among the Israelites received a consecration to 
the Lord in infancy'', Avhich no other infants did 
receive, was that God sanctified all the first-born 
for Himself, when he smote every first-born in 
the land of Egypt. 

"Almighty and everliving God, we humbly be- 
seech thy Majesty," — a most august exordium in- 
deed. In the two Prayer Books of Edward, and 
in that of Elizabeth, the second title of God was 
"everlasting," not "everliving." "Everliving," 
however, ajDpears in the Black Letter Prayer 
Book of 1636, in which Cosin entered his emen- 
dations and additions at the last Review. Cer- 
tainly " everliving " is a much more forcible and 
expressive word than " everlasting." Inanimate 
objects of nature, like hills, may be called " ever- 
lasting"; but the word " everliving " could never 
be applied to them. Nor, indeed, could it be 
properly applied to any but the living God, to 
Him who hath life in Himself as an independent 
and inalienable tenure. — "We humbly beseech 
thy Majesty." "Why do we here address God in 
His Majesty, as the "great King over all the 
earth? " Because we are commemorating a tem- 
ple transaction, and the temple was Jehovah's 



6-7-. MA/^y THE VIRGIN. 377 

eartlily palace — a little miniature of heaven. A 
peculiar and profound reverence is demanded of 
those who appear before God in His temple, — in 
His very palace. 

" That, as thy only-begotten Son was this daj^ 
presented in the temple in substance of our flesh." 
This poor woman's child, clad in a mean dress, 
was recognized by Simeon as God's salvation, 
and as the " light " which should " lighten the 
Gentiles," and by Anna as the long-expected Ke- 
deemer, the desire of all nations. And thus He 
was manifested and presented xmto man in sub- 
stance of our flesh. But He was also manifested 
and presented unlo God. This was the first occa- 
sion (but assuredly not the last) of His appear- 
ance "in the presence of God for us;" and He 
appeared as a sinless infant, "the only perfect 
blossom," as Archbishop Trench beautifully puts 
it, " which ever unfolded itself out of the stalk 
of humanity," that He might sanctify sinful in- 
fants, and inaugurate the solemn presentation of 
them to God in His own holy sacrament of Bap- 
tism. — "In substance of our flesh." Our flesh 
here means our whole nature, with every constit- 
uent part of it, body, soul, and spirit; and the 
word "substance" may usefully remind us of the 
reality of Christ's humanity — that His life, with 
all its temptations and trials, and His death, with 
all its tortures and cruelties, was not a mere 
phantom or appearance, as the Docetse taught, 
but a real and true human life. 

"So we may be presented unto thee with pure 



378 THE PURIFICATION OF 

and clean hearts." It would have been better 
had the translation been more literal. In the 
original it is, "with purified minds"; and "puri- 
fied" is better than "pure," inasmuch as the 
latter does not necessarily imply, as the former 
does, that the mind or heart is impure originall}^, 
and needs to be made pure. We were presented 
to God by the Church in our infancy, and received 
in our Baptism the first influences of the purify- 
ing Spirit. When come to an age to act for our- 
selves, we must co-operate with the Spirit, and, 
having experienced God's mercies in the forgive- 
ness of our sins, must "present our bodies a 
living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which 
is His reasonable service." These two presenta- 
tions will lead on to a third and crowning pre- 
sentation, in which, as is here intimated, the 
offerer will be the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. 
For it is very observable that, in translating this 
CoUectj our Reformers have altered the usual 
concluding clause. It is not " through Jesus Christ 
our Lord," expressing simj^ly that the prayer is 
offered through the mediation of Christ, but "6?/ 
Jesus Christ our Lord," which words are to be 
construed, not with the petitionary words, " we 
humbly beseech thy Majesty," but with the peti- 
tion itself, "we may be presented iinto thee." 
The final presentation of- the believer to God is 
attributed in Holy Scripture to different persons. 
Sometimes it is the pastor who presents the flock 
to Christ, as His bride: "I am jealous over you 
with a godly jealousy: for I have espoused you 



ST. MARY THE VIRGIN. 379 

s 

to one husband, that / may jjresent you as a chaste 

virgin to CJirist." Sometimes it is Clirist Avho 
presents the Church to Himself; " Christ loved 
the church, and gave Himself for it; that He 
might sanctify and cleanse it Avith the washing 
of water by the word, that He might present it 
to Himself a glorious church, not having spot, or 
wrinkle, or any such thing." Sometimes it is 
God Himself who presents the Church to Him- 
self, as in 2 Cor. iv. 14: "He which raised up the 
Lord Jesus, shall raise up us also b}^ Jesus, and 
shall present us with you.' And sometimes, if our 
English translation of the passage be correct, 
which may be doubted, it is Christ who presents 
the saints to God, thus fulfiUing His highjoriestly 
function for the last time before the lavino- it 
down for ever. This presentment of believers by 
Christ must have been the idea of Cranmer, when 
he wrote, "by" instead of "through" before the 
Saviour's name. He desired to open a glimpse 
to us of the last offering made b}^ our great 
Melchisedec in his capacity of priest, before He 
lays down the mediatorial kingdom. And a very 
beautiful ghmpse it is, and one which, instead of 
barely reminding us that our petitions must be 
offered through the Mediator, shows that our- 
selves also must be presented by Him, if we are 
to find acceptance. 



380 ST. MATTHIAS'S DAY. 



&t JHattI)tas*s Bag. 

Almiglity God, who into the place of the traitor Judas 
didst choose thy faithful servant Matthias to he of 
the number of the twelve Apostles; Grant that thy 
Church, being alway preserved frmn false Apostles, 
may be ordered and guided by faithful and true 
pastors; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. 
(A.D. 1549.) 

THE Collect for St. Matthias's Day in the 
Missal of Sarum recited, like our own, as 
the basis of its petition, the fact of God's having 
chosen this saint to a fellowship in the college of 
the Apostles; but the petition itself, " Grant, we 
beseech thee, that by his intercession we may 
ever experience thy fatherly compassion in what 
concerns us," was objectionable, as recognizing 
the doctrine of the intercession and patronage of 
saints, and was exchanged in 1549 for one not 
only much more suitable to the fact rehearsed, 
but greatly demanded at all times by the needs 
of the Church. 

" O Almighty God, who into the place of the 
traitor Judas didst choose," etc. It is interesting 
to note the various agencies which were at work 
in this earliest selection of a laborer for the Lord's 
vineyard. First, the Apostles act under the di- 
rection of God's Providence and God's Word. 
His Providence had made, or perhaps we should 
say, had permitted to be made, a gap in the num- 
ber of the Apostles. That number was twelve. 



ST. MATTHIAS'S DAY. 881 

the number of the tribes of Israel; aiid it had 
been promised to them that " in the regeneration 
Avhen the Sou of Man shall sit in the throne of 
His glory" they "also" should "sit upon twelve 
thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel." In 
the hundred and ninth Psalm, in which, under 
the new lio'ht which recent events had thrown 
upon it, St. Peter seems to have seen a prophecy 
of the awful doom of Judas, it is written, " Let 
another take his office " — the word used for "of- 
fice" in the Septuagint or Greek translation of 
the Scriptures being the very word used in the 
Pastoral Epistles, and in the Apostolic Fathers, 
to express the office of a bishop, or ecclesiastical 
superintendent — the word which finds itself rep- 
resented in our own words episcopate, episcopacy. 
Then follows the agency of the Church in the 
matter. God, though His own agency must be 
supreme in the appointment of His ministers, 
does not see fit to supersede those faculties of 
judgment and discernment with which He has 
endowed His people. The Church could say by 
the exercise of these faculties, and did say, which 
of its members possessed the required qualifica- 
tions. But, since the original Apostles had been 
specially chosen by Christ Himself, and since as 
yet He had not come among them by His prom- 
ised Representative the Comforter, and so they 
could not count jDositively upon His internal 
guidance in the matter, what method of discrim- 
inating between the two qualified candidates could 
they adopt ? The new Dispensation not having 



382 ST. MATTHIAS'S DAY. 

been fully and formally opened by the descent 
of tlie Holy Spirit, they fell back upon the lines 
of the old Dispensation. The particular depart- 
ment of ministration in the Temple, which each 
priest should take, was determined by lot, as we 
see in the case of Zacharias, the father of St. John 
the Baptist, whose lot '"'was to burn incense when 
he went into the temple of the Lord." But be- 
fore determining the question in this manner the 
Apostles (Peter doubtless being thek mouthpiece) 
j)rayed: " Thou, Lord, which knowest the hearts 
of all men, show whether of these two thou hast 
chosen." Possibly this prayer may have been 
addressed to the Father, to Him whose Provi- 
dence directs the lot, according to that word of 
foregone Scripture: "The lot is cast into the lap; 
but the whole disposing thereof is of the Lord." 
But more probably, it seems to me, it is addressed 
to Christ, He having been the chooser of the 
twelve original Apostles. 

"Grant that thy Church, being alway -pre- 
served from false Apostles." This part of the 
petition corresponds to the notice of Judas in 
the earlier part of the Collect — "w^ho into the 
place of the traitor Judas." Greatly is the prayer 
enriched by this reference to St. Paul's severe 
notice of his detractors in 2 Cor. xi. 13, 14, 15: 
" For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, 
transforming themselves into the apostles of 
Christ. And no marvel; for Satan himself is 
transformed into an angel of light. Therefore 
it is no great thing if his ministers also be trans- 



S7\ MATTHIAS'S DAY. 383 

formed as the miuisters of righteousness; whose 
end shall be according to their works." Where- 
ever there is a true coin current, a counterfeit 
coin is sure to be circulated along with it. And 
that the grace and work of Apostleship was pe- 
culiarly apt to be counterfeited, we may gather 
from the letter to the angel of the Church of 
Ephesus in Eev. ii., where this is part of his 
praise: " Thou hast tried them which say they are: 
apostles, and are not, and hast found them liars," 
— tried them, doubtless, both by the doctrinal 
tests laid down for trying the spirits, and by our 
Lord's test for the discrimination of false prophets : 
"By their fruits ye shall know them." Bisho^os 
represent the Apostles in theii* ordinary ministry, 
though not in their supernatural endowments; 
and how awfully critical for the Church is every 
choice that is made of a bishop; and how ought 
the faithful to recognize it as critical, by making 
the election of each bishop a matter of earnest, 
persevering prayer ! 

" May be ordered and guided b}' faithful and 
true pastors " — the faithfulness of Matthias hav- 
ing been glanced at in the earlier part of the 
prayer. — The words " ordering " and "guidance" 
yield rather different ideas. " Ordering" denotes 
rather the normal administration of a diocese by 
its chief pastor; "guidance^' rather the function 
of the helmsman, who turns the ship whitherso- 
ever he ^vills, than that of the captain who pre- 
sides over the internal economy of the crew. 
The chief pastor should not merely " order '' 



384 ST. MATTHIAS'S DAY. 

(that is, rule and restrain), but guide the move- 
ments which the progress of thought, or the gen- 
eral advance of society, gives rise to in the body 
politic of the Church, 

Nor do the words " faithful " and " true " in- 
dicate precisely the same attributes. A "true" 
pastor is one who has not only received a true 
mission from the great "Shepherd and Bishop 
of souls," but one whose exercise of the ministry 
is prompted by sincere motives, the desire of 
furthering Christ's cause and the spiritual w^el- 
fare of men, not ambition, or the desire of hu- 
man praise. " Faithfulness," on the other hand, 
rather regards the pastor's relation to the flock 
than to his Master. He is a faithful steward of 
God's mysteries, who disj)enses the Word and 
Sacraments faithfully, "rightly dividing the word 
of truth." 



THE ANNUNCIATION. 385 



Elje annunciation of tJje Blesseti 
Firgin fHarg* 

We beseech Ihee, Lord, loour thy grace into our hearts, 
that, as we have knoivn the incarnation of thy Son 
Jesus Christ by the message of an angel, so by His 
cross and passion we may be brought unto the glory 
of His resurrection: through the same Jesus Christ 
our Lord. Amen. 

Gratiam tuam, qucesumus, Domine, mentibus nostris 
infunde: id qui angelo nuntiante Christ i Filii tut 
incarnationem cognovimus, per passionem ejus et 
crucem ad resurrectionis gloriain perducamur. Per 
eundem. (Gkeq. Sac, Miss. Sab.) 

IN framing the Book of Common Prayer, our 
Reformers never made new prayers of their 
own, where the old ones were unobjectionable. 
The Collect before us, like that for the Purifica- 
tion, is an ancient prayer, found in the Sacra- 
mentary of Gregory, and, therefore, dating at 
least from the end of the sixth century; but it 
was not formerly the Collect of the Festival. 
Very early in the history of Christian Liturgies 
there grew up round about the Collect, Epistle, 
and Gospel, certain additional forms of devotion. 
Thus there was a short anthem after the Epistle, 
called the Gradual, and when the administration 
of the Sacrament was ended, a Collect was re- 
cited, which went under the name of the Post- 
Communion. The Collect for the Feast of the 
Annunciation being hopelessly corrupt, since it 



386 THE ANNUNCIATION OF 

was a prayer that we miglit be assisted by the 
intercessions " of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the 
Reformers fell back upon the Post-Communion 
Collect, which was quite sound, and have given 
us a translation of it. 

" We beseech thee, O Lord, pour thy grace into 
our hearts." God's grace is spoken of under the 
image of dew or rain, which fertilizes the soil; and 
when we say, "Pour thy grace into our hearts," 
we mean, "Let thy Spirit work there." There 
is, indeed, another important meaning, which the 
word " grace of God " bears in the New Testa- 
ment. It is used of the announcement and offer 
made to us in the Gospel of Christ. Thus in the 
fifth chapter of the Second Epistle to the Corin- 
thians, the A230stle, as an ambassador of Christ, 
in whom the world of reconciliation was lodged, 
announces to the Corinthians that God hath made 
Christ, " who knew no sin, to be sin for us," and 
beseeches them, on the ground of this perfect 
sin-offering, to be reconciled uiito Him, who now 
no more imputes unto them their trespasses. 
Immediately after which the sixth chapter opens 
thus: "We then, as workers together with Him, 
beseech you also that ye receive not the grace of 
God in vain," where the word "grace" evidently 
means, not the work of the Holy Spirit, but the 
atoning, reconciling work of Christ. Now what 
is this Collect, but a prayer that we may not re- 
ceive in vain the announcement of the Incarna- 
tion — the first great act of God's grace towards 
man — but go on to be conformed to Christ's cross 



THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY. 387 

and passion, so that in the end we may be con- 
formed to His resurrection; for only " if we have 
been planted together in the likeness of His 
death, we shall be also in the likeness of His res- 
urrection." 

" That, as we have known the incarnation of thy 
Son Jesus Christ by the message of an angel." 

(1.) Here. we haye, first, the bearer of the 
message — an angel. The particular angel em- 
ployed on this occasion had, on a previous occa- 
sion, given his name. " I am Gabriel," he had 
said to Zacharias, " that stand in the i^resence of 
God," — that IS, one of the angels of the Presence, 
the circle of blessed spirits who stand nearest of 
all created existences to the throne. And it is 
remarkable that for the more confirmation of a 
truth, upon which the salvation of man hinged, 
the angel came twice — once to the Blessed Vir- 
gin before she had conceived the Holy Child, 
and once to her husband after her conception. 
What pains had God taken to preclude the ca- 
vils of scepticism ! It might reasonably be asked, 
" Was it never doubted at the time of the birth 
of Christ whether Mary's Child was indeed God 
incarnate? Was no one disposed to question a 
claim so extraordinary, and to set the mother down 
among the frailest and the falsest of the children 
of Eve ? " The ansAver is that her own husband 
doubted her, and was casting about how, with- 
out open publication of her shame, he might j^ro- 
cure a divorce ; but that he, too, was visited in a 
dream by the angel, who announced to him the 



388 THE ANNUNCIATION OF 

Divine paternity of the Child whose birth was 
impending, and left him with those sweet ac- 
cents ringing in his ear, — accents sweeter (I 
think) than any which St. Mary had been priyi- 
leged to hear : " He shall save His people from 
their sins." 

Observe, too, how appropriate was the em- 
ployment of Gabriel on these two missions (I as- 
sume that, as it was he who was sent to St. Mary, 
so it was he also who came on a similar errand 
to St. Joseph), the angel who had been sent to 
Daniel with the great prophecy of the seventy 
weeks, and of the advent of " Messiah the prince," 
who was "to make reconciliation for iniquity, 
and to bring in everlasting righteousness," when 
those weeks were ebbing to their close. 

(2.) The next point is the message, — "We 
have known the incarnation of thy Son Jesus 
Christ by the message of an angel."' 

That the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ 
is indeed the foundation-truth of the Christian 
religion is clear from that passage of St. John's 
First Epistle, "Every sj)irit that confesseth that 
Jesus Christ is come in the flesh, is of God : And 
every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ 
is come in the flesh, is not of God: and this is 
that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard 
that it should come." Of course the confession 
that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh involves, 
and is equivalent to, the confession that He is 
God; for to sa}^ that a man is come in the flesh 
would be a mere truism. 



THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY. 389 

(3.) Lastly, there is in these words the knowl- 
edge of the truth, which is gained by the mes- 
sage of the angel, — "As we have known the 
incarnation by the message." 

Our knowledge of the Incarnation, however, 
is not derived directly, as that of St. Mary and 
St. Joseph was, from the evidence of our senses. 
Nor, indeed, was this the case with the Apostles, 
and the men of that countr}^ and generation. 
No; the information comes to us through faith, 
that is, through reasonable belief in a testimony 
which commends itself to our conscience as a tes- 
timony meeting the needs of fallen man, as they 
have been evidenced by a long experience. And 
this faith, from its assurance, is sometimes called 
knowledge: "We have known and believed the 
love that God hath to us." 

But we must not only know and believe, we 
must go on to act upon our faith ; for we are told 
that " faith worketh by love," and that "faith with- 
out works is dead." And, accordingly, we here 
are taught to pray " that as we have known the 
incarnation of thy Son Jesus Christ by the mes- 
sage of an angel, so by His cross and passion we 
may be brought unto the glory of His resurrec- 
tion." By His cross and passion in two ways. 
Not only by His cross and passion objectively, as 
the ransom of our souls, which He paid down 
for us, and which is altogether external to our- 
selves and our own endeavors — this, of course, 
but not this alone— but also by our being con- 
formed to His cross and passion by the crucifix- 



390 ST. MARK'S DAY. 

ion of the old man with Him, and by the mor- 
tification of our members which are upon the 
earth. 



Ahnigliiy God, wlio liast instructed iliy holy Church 
laith the heavenly doctrine of thy Evangelist Saint 
Mark; Give us grace, that, being not like children 
carried away with every blast of vain doctrine, we 
may be established in the truth of thy holy Gospel; 
thro ugh Jesus Christ o ur Lord. Amen . (a. d. 154:9. ) 

THIS Collect also is the handiwork of our 
Reformers, and made its first appearance 
in the Prayer Book of 1549. With the view of 
weaving into the jDraj^er some passage of Holy 
Scripture found in the services of the day, they 
added three verses to the Epistle in the Missal 
of Sarum, thus embracing the words, "that we 
be no more children, tossed to and fro, and car- 
ried about with every wind of doctrine." 

How is St. Mark's doctrine specially adapted to. 
establish us in the truth of God's holy Gospel? 
First, there is undoubtedly a vividness of por- 
traiture about St. Mark's narrative, a lifelike col- 
oring, a minuteness of detail, which make us feel 
that he is narrating what really happened, and 
so tend to establish us in the truth of Gospel 
facts. And it is upon Gosj)el facts that Gos- 
pel doctrines are built. The Ej^istles of the New 
Testament have absolutely no ground to stand 
upon, if you cut away the Gospels. Let me 



ST. MARK'S DAY. 391 

give only a very few out of the thousand life- 
like touches, with which St. Mark's narrative 
abounds. It is he alone who tells us that our 
Lord in His temptation was "w^ith the wild 
beasts," thus furnishing one feature of the con- 
trast between the first Adam in the garden and 
the second Adam in the wilderness. He alone 
gives us the information that Zebedee had " hired 
servants " in his fishing-boat, showing us that the 
social j)osition of Zebedee's sons, before their call 
to the Apostleship, was by no means one of abso- 
lute poverty; they were substantial middleclass 
people. In the account of the Transfiguration 
he uses those two lively comparisons — one drawn 
from nature, the other from art — to express the 
lustre of our Lord's raiment, " His raiment be- 
came shining, exceeding white as snow; so as no 
fuller on earth can white them." Of these j)ar- 
ticulars we should have known nothing, had it 
not been for St. Mark. Then, again, it is to St. 
Mark that we are indebted for the actual Ara- 
maic words which our Lord used on several oc- 
casions, — ''Ej^hjohatha," " Talitha cumi," "Abba, 
Father," — the effect of all these little details be- 
ing to give reality and life to the narrative, to as- 
sure us that the "things wherein " we have "been 
instructed " are not " cunningly devised fables," 
but facts handed down to us b}^ those who were 
eyewitnesses of them. 

But again, " establishment in the truth of the 
holy Gospel " may mean not merely conviction of 
the actual occurrence of things recorded by the 



392 ST. MARK'S DAY. 

Evangelists, but also growth in grace and in ex- 
perimental knowledge of the truth. This growth 
is spoken of in the Epistle for the Day: — "But, 
speaking the truth in love,- may grow" up into 
Him in all things." It is beautifully emblema- 
tized in the Gospel, which is our Lord's allegory 
of the true Vine: "I am the vine, ye are the 
branches: he that abideth in me, and I in him, 
the same bringeth forth much fruit : for without 
me ye can do nothing." It is implied in the 
Collect, which is a prayer for establishment in 
the truth; and how are we to be established in 
it, but by "growing in grace, and in the knowl- 
edge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ"? 
That St. Mark wrote his Gospel under the in- 
structions of St. Peter, is not only the uniform 
tradition of the Church, but a tradition which 
derives its chief sup23ort from the contents of St. 
Mark's Gospel. That this Gospel must have been 
written, if not by, yet under the dictation of an 
eyewitness, is certain from those minute and gra- 
phic touches which are everywhere character- 
istic of it, and a few of which have been cited. 
But it also exliibits traces of the authorship of 
St. Peter, as it records several things which must 
have had a special interest for him. The record 
that the cock crowed twice, and that the first 
crowing took j)lace immediately after the first 
denial, and that thus a warning was given to the 
Apostle, which had not the effect of immediately 
reclaiming him, so that the sin was something 
graver than a mere surprise, — all this rests upon 



ST. MARK'S DAY. 393 

St. Mark's authority exclusively. And it is from 
him also that we learn that Jesus made special 
mention of Peter in the message which He sent 
to the Apostles by the women: "Go your way, 
tell His disciples and Peter that He goeth before 
you into Galilee." On the whole, we need not 
hesitate to accept the generally received tradi- 
tion that St. Mark was employed by St. Peter to 
put on record his testimony to the works and 
words of Jesus; and that he was very probably 
*' my son Marcus," — my son in the faith, — who 
joins in the salutations at the end of the First 
Epistle of St. Peter. The style of his Gospel be- 
ing terse, incisive, and Roman — like Csesar's Com- 
mentaries, to which it has often been compared — 
Dr. Isaac Da Costa conjectures (and, if nothing 
more, it is an interesting conjectui'e) that Mark 
was the devout soldier who waited on Cornelius, 
and was sent to Joppa by him ; that he was con- 
verted by St. Peter's sermon in the centurion's 
house, and was one of the group of Gentiles on 
whom the Holy Ghost fell previously to Baptism. 
But, whoever the Evangelist may have been, he 
clearly speaks the language j)ut in his mouth by 
St. Peter; and in connection with this Collect, 
which is a prayer for establishment in the truth 
of the holy Gospel, we may jjerhaps be allowed 
to observe that St. Peter's ministry rather repre- 
sents to us the ministr}^ of edification, while that 
of his great colleague, St. Paul, would be more 
justly characterized as the ministry of conversion. 



394 ST. PHILIP AND ST. JAMES'S DAY. 



Almigldy God, ichom truly to know is evei'Iasibig 
life; Grant us jJGrfectli/ to know thy Son Jesus Christ 
to be the icay, the truth, and the life; that, following 
the steps of thy holy Apostles, Saint Philip and Saint 
James, we may stedfasily walk in the xi'ay that lead- 
eth to eternal life; through the same thy Son Jesus 
Christ our Lord. Amen. (a. d. 1549.) 

THE Collect for St. Philip and St. James's 
Day in the Missal of Sarum, besides con- 
taining a questionable expression, is somewhat 
jejune. It is merely a prayer that Ave may be 
instructed by the examples of St. Philip and St. 
James, whose festival we are joyfully celebrating. 
The Reformers, in the first draft of the Eng- 
lish Praj^er Book in 1549, wrote a new Collect, 
basing it upon two texts of St. John's Gospel. 
Cosin, at the last Revision in 1661, gave it still 
more bod}^, and at the same time a practical turn, 
by inserting the latter clause about "following 
the steps of the holy Apostles," and " walking in 
the way that leadeth to eternal life." 

But what is the reason for associating St. Philip 
and St. James, as also, at a later period of the 
year, St. Simon and St. Jude, in one commemo- 
ration? Probably the only reason is that it re- 
calls to mind our Lord's method of securing to 
His missionaries mutual sympathy and succor, by 
sending them forth "two and two." St. Mark 



ST. PHILIP AND ST. JAMES'S DAY. 395 

tells us that He adopted this plan with the twelve 
Apostles; and St. Luke that He afterwards ex- 
tended it to the seventy disciples; and though St. 
Matthew, whose Gospel must be regarded as the 
mother-gospel of the four, does not ex]3ressly 
mention the circumstance, yet he implies it when 
he gives us the names of the Apostles in couples, 
Simon and Andrew, James and John, Philip and 
Bartholomew, and so forth. The principle is one 
which has till recently been too much forgotten 
in the organization of Christian missions. One 
and one make more than two, when each acts 
not separately, but in concert, the concert 
which comes from mutual understanding and 
sympath}^ 

" Almighty God, whom truly to know is ever- 
lasting life," or, as the Second Collect at Morning 
Prayer has it, "in knowledge of whom standeth " 
{i. e. consists) "our eternal life." Our Lord, in 
His great high-priestly prayer saj'-s: " This is life 
eternal, that they might know thee, the only true 
God; " but He does not stop there, as if the knowl- 
edge of the only true God were of itself and by 
itself eternal life ; He immediately adds, " and Je- 
sus Christ, whom thou hast sent." Is the Prayer 
Book then justified in saying that " truly to know 
God is eternal life," — that "in knowledge of Him 
our eternal life consists " ? Had Abraham, think 
you, that knowledge of God in which consists 
eternal life? had Moses? had David and the 
Psalmists? Without a doubt they had. Our 
Lord Himself distinctly tells the Sadducees, on 



396 ST. PHILIP AND ST. JAMES'S DAY. 

the ground of Grod's being still called the God of 
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, after the death of 
those Patriarchs, that they were then alive unto 
God. It is God, as seen in the face of Jesus Christ, 
whether dimlj^, as by devout Jews under the Old 
Testament, or lucidly, as by devout Christians 
under the New, and not God absolutely, whom 
truly to know is eternal life. And this is inti- 
mated very emphatically in what follows. 

" Grant us perfectly to know thy Son Jesus 
Christ to be the way, the truth, and the life," — as 
much as to say: "Since truly to know Thee is 
eternal life, grant us perfectly to know the true 
interpretation of Thee." Now^ note the exceed- 
ing appositeness of this to the occasion. We are 
commemorating St. Philip the Apostle. Now it 
was St. Philip who, when the Lord had told His 
disciples that they knew and had seen the Fa- 
ther, said, "Lord, shew us the Father, and it 
sufficeth us." Our Lord at once replied: "Have 
I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou 
not known me, Philip ? he that hath seen me hath 
seen the Father; and how say est thou then. Shew 
us the Father ? " No man can have a right un- 
derstanding or true knowledge of God except in 
and through the face of His Son Jesus Christ; 
and thus the prayer of the Collect virtually is, that 
we may avoid St. Philip's mistake, and not dream 
of seeing the Father, except through the ordained 
medium of seeing Him — " the only begotten Son 
who hath declared (or expounded) Him." Jesus 
Christ, as a Person in the Godhead,- is "Light of 



S7\ PHILIP AND ST. JAMES'S DAY. 397 

Light," — a ray proceeding from the fountain of 
rays, which is God the Father. Without Him there 
is no revelation of God at all. He is the revealer 
of God in the works of Nature; "for b}' Him were 
all things created.'"' He is the revealer of God in 
the conscience of man; for He is "the true Light, 
which lighteth every man that cometh into the 
world." He is the revealer of God in the Old 
Testament; for he was the Angel Jehovah, Avho 
on so many occasions appeared to the patriarchs 
and jDrophets, as the medium of communication 
between God and man. But yet a brighter and 
more exact revelation of God was needed. This 
was done by the Incarnation of the Son of God. 
"The "Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, 
full of grace and truth." But of what avail would 
it have been to have exhibited God, without at 
the same time exhibiting the way by which sin- 
ful men might apj)roach Him ? To meet St. 
Philip's demand^ "Lord, shew us the Father, and 
it sufficeth us," would only have shut up the dis- 
ciples to blank despair, unless our Lord had at 
the same time solved St. Thomas's perplexity: 
" How can we know the way? " Indeed, the way 
to heaven and to the Heavenly Father is the more 
dii'ectly practical of the two questions; and there- 
fore our Lord addresses Himself to answer that 
first: "I am the Avay, the truth, and the life." 
Christ " hath consecrated for us a new and liv- 
ing way," whereby " we ma}' enter into the ho- 
liest," " through the veil, that is to say, His flesh " 
(or human nature). But observe that the veil must 



398 ST. PHILIP AND ST. JAAIES' S DAY. 

be rent in twain, before we can enter. It is only 
by the atoning Nood of Jesus that we can have 
boldness to enter in. And when we do so enter 
in, we find Him who is "the way" to be also "the 
truth," in the sense which that word bears in St. 
John's writings, the truth as distinct from the 
ritual shadows of the Law, — the true means of 
access to God, as contrasted with the ceremonial 
means, w^hich the Law prescribed, and which 
were only "figures of the true." And, more- 
over, though it is through a rent veil, that is 
through a dead Christ, that we enter in, 3-et has 
this dead Christ become to us by His Resurrec- 
tion a quickening Spirit, as He says Himself: "I 
am He that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I 
am alive for evermore," — nay, it is out of death 
and through death that His humanity has that 
risen life, of which He is the source to His peo- 
ple. So much for that part of the Collect w^hich 
touches the conversation in which St. Philip was 
an interlocutor. 

As for its final clause, which is from the pen of 
Bishop Cosin, it corresponds well with the doc- 
trine inculcated by St. James the Less, the author 
of the Epistle of St. James. For that Epistle, as 
is well known, is eminent!}^ practical, insists upon 
good works as the evidence, na}^ as the very ani- 
mating soul of faith, which without them is dead, 
and upon the aggravated condemnation entailed 
by knowing to do good and doing it not. "What 
more appropriate than, that in commemorating 
such a Saint, we should pray for grace not only 



ST. BARNABAS THE APOSTLE. 399 

to " know the way that leadeth to eternal hfe," 
but, "following the steps of the holy Apostles 
St. Philip and St. James, stedfastly to walk 
therein"? 



Sit Barnabas t}}e apostle* 

Lord God Almigldi/, iclio didst endue thy holy Apos- 
tle Barnabas icith singular gifts of the Holy Ghost; 
Leave us net, we beseech thee, destitute of thy majii- 
fold gifts, nor yet of grace to use them alway to thy 
honor and glory; through Jesus Christ our Lord. 
x^jneD. (a. d. 154:9.) 

THIS Collect stands in quite the first rank 
of those man}" gems of devotion which 
ornament our Book of Common Prayer. It 
sketches for us, with one or two slight but 
masterly strokes, the relation which the grace 
of God bears to His gifts. It is due to Cran- 
mer and those who were his associates in draw- 
ing up the first Reformed Book of Common 
Prayer, masters in the art of writing prayers. 

" O Lord God Almight}'^, who didst endue thy 
holy Apostle Barnabas with singular gifts of the 
Holy Ghost." But why should we commemorate 
St. Barnabas as endued beyond other Apostles 
" with singular gifts of the Holy Ghost " ? " How 
do we know that he was a man eminent for spir- 
itual gifts? Natural gifts he must have had; for 
we read that by the heathen at Lystra he was 
called Jupiter, doubtless from his venerable, dig- 



400 ST. BARNABAS THE APOSTLE, 

nified, and commanding appearance ; this world's 
resources lie must have had, for we read of his 
Deing a landed proprietor, and laying the pro- 
ceeds of his property at the Apostles' feet; but 
how are we led to suppose that he had ' singular 
gifts of the Holy Ghost'?" We are told that 
Barnabas was not the Apostle's original name, 
that the name given him as an infant at the time 
of his circumcision was Joses; but that the Apos- 
tles, after the outpouring of the Holy Grhost upon 
them at Pentecost — by which outpouring differ- 
ent gifts were given to different members of the 
Church — had surname d him Barnabas (in He- 
brew Bar-nevooah). " NeAn^oah " in Hebrew means 
prophecy, which was one of the greatest, per- 
haps the very greatest, of all the miraculous 
gifts. St. Paul says distinctly that " greater is 
he that prophesieth than he that spealieth with 
tongues, except he interpret, that the church 
may receive edifying." And in the course of that 
chapter he so far explains the gift of prophecy 
to us, that we are enabled to say that it must 
have been a gift of preaching, but preaching as 
the result of inspiration. This was the form, 
then, in which the Pentecostal outpouring vis- 
ited St. Barnabas; it was in him a gift of prophecy 
— a gift so remarkable, so eminent, so "singular,"^ 
that the Apostles characterized him by this gift 
alone — "Bar-nevooah," the son of prophecy. — But 
St. Luke translates the Hebrew nevooah. He says 
of it, "which is, being interpreted, The son of 
consolation." Now the word here translated 



ST. BARNABAS THE APOSTLE. 401 

"consolation" is not always so translated, al- 
though usually it is so. Twenty-nine times in 
all does it occur, and in nineteen out of these 
twenty-nine times our translators have rendered 
it "consolation," or ''comfort," just as for the 
kindred adjective, when used to denote the office 
of the Holy Ghost, they have uniformly given us 
the word " Comforter." In eight of the remain- 
ing cases they have rendered it " exhortation," 
and once it is translated "intreaty." Since the 
Hebrew word nevooah means prophecy, and since 
prophecy, as St. Paul says, is "unto exhortation," 
and, moreover, since we read that w^hen Barnabas 
was sent by the church at Jerusalem to Antioch, 
to inspect the work which was there going on 
among the Gentile proselytes, "he exhorted them 
all, that with purpose of heart they would cleave 
unto the Lord," — the more correct translation 
of St. Barnabas's new^ name would probably be, 
" which is, being interpreted, a son of exhortation." 
But because this is so, w^e need not dismiss all 
the associations which gather round the w^ords 
"son of consolation," and which Keble has so 
beautifully embalmed in his Ode for St. Bar- 
nabas's Day. Barnabas, we are told, "was a 
good man, and full of the Holy Ghost and of 
faith;" and the Holy Ghost, of which he was 
full, is the Paraclete or Comforter. The Church 
was edified by Barnabas's ministr}-; and, solem- 
nized and soothed by his examj^le and influence, 
they walked in the fear of the Lord and in the 
comfort of the Holy Ghost, and thus were mul- 



402 ST. BARNABAS THE APOSTLE. 

tiplied also. And were not these " singular " 
gifts of the Holy Ghost, — ^the gift of building up 
souls on their most holy faith, of confirming them 
in the purposes of holy living; of comforting them, 
and receiving comfort at the same time, by the 
mutual faith of the teacher and the taught ? 

" Leave us not, we beseech thee, destitute of 
thy manifold gifts; " showing that we are to look 
for gift^ of the Holy Ghost, no less than for His 
grace, and to " covet earnestl}^ the best gifts," 
even now when the miraculous element, which 
there once was in these gifts, no longer attaches 
to them. One man's gift leads him rather to the 
quiet thoughtful study of the Holy Scriptures. 
Another has the gift of utterance, — he is capaci- 
tated by the Spirit for preaching. And among 
preachers one has rather the gift of awakening 
the sinner, the other that of building up the 
faithful. Another is endowed with that insight 
into human character, and that tact in drawing- 
it out, which qualifies him for dealing with indi- 
vidual souls, and also for putting the right man 
in the . right place. Another (and it is as great 
a gift as any) attracts others to him by mere 
force of sympathy. All these may seem to be 
mere features of natural character; and so they 
are, as they exist in the natural man; but when 
the Spirit touches them in Baptism, and when 
He touches them again in the impartation of 
real faith to the soul, they receive a consecration 
which fits them for the service of God, and be- 
come spiritual gifts, though with a natural basis. 



ST. BARNABAS THE APOSTLE. 403 

Some measure of them is essential, if ' not to 
our individual salvation, yet to our usefulness, 
and we pray accordingly that God "would not 
leave us destitute of them." 

"Nor yet of grace to use them alway." It is 
grace which alone can give a right direction to 
gifts, whether material, intellectual, or spiritual. 
Observe that without use every faculty, whether 
natural or moral, decays. If you keep one of 
your limbs without exercise, it will become pow- 
erless and paralyzed. The first thing which grace 
prompts in the heart is the use and cultivation 
of our gifts, — that we let none of them lie fal- 
low. But to what end ? with what purpose and 
intention ? 

"To use them alway to thy honor and glory." 
Not to our own, but to Thine. And this direction 
of the gifts is no very easy task, especially if the}^ 
are mental or moral. Man's heart is naturally 
so proud that even spiritual gifts of the highest 
order will only, apart from God's grace, puff 
him up and breed in him undue elation and 
vainglory. " Knowledge puffeth up," saith the 
Apostle, "but charity edifieth." Charity is the 
love of God, and of man for God's sake. And 
unless charity administers our gifts to her own 
ends, which are God's glory and man's salvation, 
better ten thousand times were it for us that we 
had never been endowed with them. In that 
case they will only aggravate our condemnation. 



404 ST. JOHN BAPTIST'S DAY. 



$t Sofjn Baptisfg ©as* 

Alinigldy God, hy icliose providence thy servant John 
Baptist icas wonderfully horn, and sent to prepare 
the way of thy Son our Saviour, hy preaching re- 
pentance; Make us so to folio ic his doctrine and holy 
life, that we may truly repent according to Ids preach- 
ing; and after his example constantly speak the truth, 
holdly rehuke vice, and patiently suffer for the triith^s 
sake; through Jesiis Christ our Lord. Amen. (a. d. 
1549.) 

1'^HE only word in tliis Collect, wliicli differs 
from what our Reformers wrote in 1549, 
is "repentance." This word was substituted by 
Bishop Cosin for "penance." The word had un- 
dergone a deterioration of meaning before the 
time of the Reformation, having come to signify 
the punishment imjDOsed by the priest for sins 
confessed by a penitent in the so-called Sacra- 
ment of Penance. He who went through the 
actions of self-denial or devotion prescribed in 
the confessional, and as a condition of the valid- 
ity of his absolution, was said to "c?o penance." 
Penance was something done rather than some- 
thing felt — a satisfaction for sin rather than a 
" godly sorrow " for it. It was necessary that 
this whole circle of unscriptural ideas should be 
banished from the offices of the Reformed Church; 
and the word "penance," therefore, was never 
allowed to stand. 

" Almighty God, by whose providence thy ser- 



ST. JOHN BAPTIST'S BAY. 405 

vant John Baptist T\'as wonderfully born." St. 
John Baj^tist's birth had been foretold in proph- 
ecy, and was signalized by miracle. First, il had 
been foretold in prophecy, by the mouth of Isaiah, 
seven hundred years before it came to pass. His 
birth was like the first bright streak in the east, 
which precedes the rising of the sun, and the an- 
nouncement of it might well be prefaced, as the 
Proj)het prefaces it, by the cheering accents, 
" Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your 
God." But three hundred years elapsed after 
Isaiah's jDrophecy of John, and then his career 
was once more predicted by Malachi, and pre- 
dicted at a most solemn crisis, the closing up of 
the Canon of the Old Testament. The oracles of 
God were about to be closed up and sealed, until 
He should come, to whom all the Law and the 
Prophets did testify. Old Testament projDhecy 
expired with the name of John upon her lips; for 
John, says our Lord, " is Elias which was for to 
come." "Behold, I will send you Elijah the 
prophet," one in the spirit and power of Elijah, 
one costumed as he was outwardly, and minded 
as he was inwardly, and whose ministry shall 
have similar effects to his, "before the coming 
of the great and dreadful day of the Lord: 
and he shall turn the heart of the fathers to 
the children, and the heart of the children to 
their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth 
with a curse." 

But John Baptist's birth was to be predicted 
yet a third and last time, not only in the holy 



406 ST. JOHN BAPTIST'S DAY. 

city, but in the temple, which was the very heart 
and core of the city, nay, in the holy place, which 
was the very heart and core of the temple. It 
was predicted at a most critical moment of the 
service, at the time when the priest of the week 
drew aside the first veil, and went into the sanc- 
tuary to offer the symbolic incense, while all the 
people without the veil were sending up from 
their hearts those prayers, which were being sym- 
bolized within, and waiting in silence for the re- 
turn of the priest to give them his benediction. 
For Gabriel at that critical moment came down 
from heaven, and presented himself on the right 
side of the altar of incense, and foretold John's 
birth, and the joy which it should create, and his 
greatness, and his manner of life and his sanctity, 
and his work and the success of it, identifying 
him, moreover, with the subject of Malachi's 
prophecy by quoting it of him. So that there 
w^as a miracle, — even the appearance of the an- 
gel, and the result of his colloquy with Zacharias, 
— in the prediction of the birth of St. John an tuell 
as in the birth itself. 

The man whose ministry God designed to 
make use of, to prepare the way of Christ in the 
minds of those to whom He came, occupied a 
position altogether peculiar, and had the destiny 
of the human race suspended upon him in a way 
in which it never yet was suspended upon any 
mere man. No wonder that Prophecy announced 
his birth beforehand, and that Prophecy and 
Miracle together ushered it in; he was great, not 



ST. JOHN BAPTIST'S DAY. 407 

with that factitious greatness with which this 
world invests its heroes, its statesmen, its rulers, 
but " great in the eyes of the Lord," and in the 
eyes of truth; great, moreover, from the magna- 
nimit}'' of his character, no less than from his crit- 
ical position in the history of the human race. 

" And sent to i^repare the way of thy Son our 
Saviour." That the Baptist fulfilled this mission, 
that he did by his preaching prepare the way of 
our Saviour, is shown by the first Chapter of St. 
John's Gospel, where we read that he pointed 
out Jesus to two of his disciples, who were stand- 
ing by his side, as " the Lamb of God, who taketh 
away the sin of the world," — the Lamb foreshad- 
owed by the Paschal Lamb, and foretold by Isa- 
iah as brought to the slaughter. Some of the 
most influential of our Lord's disciples had been 
prepared for the reception of Him by the min- 
istry of St. John the Baptist. 

"By preaching repentance." In speaking of 
the repentance which the Baptist preached, great 
care should be taken not to confound it with that 
repentance, which cannot be attained by qi\j soul 
of man until it is first acquainted with Christ, and 
has by faith received Him. The repentance, to 
which John exhorted, was not that which St. Paul 
describes as the fruit of "godly sorrow." It was 
eminently practical; and, if we are to draw up a 
definition of it from the data which the Gospels 
furnish, we should say that it was a hearty will- 
ingness to put away all known sin, and to adopt 
every practice which commends itself to the con- 



408 ST. JOHN BAPTIST'S DAY. 

science as prescribed by God, and therefore right. 
The rationale of John's ministry was just this, that 
without real rehgious earnestness the Saviour can- 
not be embraced by faith. Tliis is the first step. 
See that you have really taken it, before you pro- 
pose to go on to anything higher. 

"Make us so to follow his doctrine and holy 
life." His doctrine and life were both of a piece. 
He bade people be in earnest about their souls; 
and he showed his own earnestness by giving 
himself up unreservedly, first to the preparation 
for his ministry, and then to the exercise of it. 
When asked for general advice as to how people 
should exhibit their repentance, he answered, 
" He that hath two coats, let him impart to him 
that hath none; and he that hath meat, let him 
do likewise." And his example went considera- 
bly ahead of his advice; for as for clothing, he 
had only the rough camel's hair mantle, which 
formed the prophetical costume, with the girdle 
of skin round his loins; and as for meat, his sus- 
tenance was only of nature's furnishing and what 
all had a right to equally with himself — " his meat 
was locusts and wild honey." 

But I apprehend that when mention is made 
of St. John's "doctrine," we are to understand by 
the term not only the repentance which he incul- 
cated, but also, and more especially, his indica- 
tion of Christ as "the Lamb of God, which taketh 
away the sin of the world." The Baptist did not 
inculcate repentance as the goal to be reached, 
but only as the racecourse that led to the goal. 



ST. JOHN BAPTIST'S DAY. 409 

He pointed his hearers to the holy, harmless, im- 
defiled, atoning Lamb of God, sent them to this 
Lamb of God on one occasion, bequeathed them 
to Him, before he died, as now to become the 
disciples of a better Master. And that he him- 
self had by a personal faith received that Christ, 
whom he pointed out to others, we may gather 
with certainty from the words in which he ex- 
jDresses his joy in the Saviour's success, notwith- 
standing that it was a success w^hich eclipsed and 
extinguished his own: "He that hath the bride 
is the bridegroom: but the friend of the bride- 
groom, which standeth and heareth him, rejoiceth 
greatly because of the bridegroom's voice: this 
my joy therefore is fulfilled. He must increase, 
but I must decrease." 

'•' That we may truly repent according to his 
preaching." Observe the implication of the word 
"truh'." There may be a false and spurious re- 
pentance, such as was that of Judas Iscariot, 
which may even lead us to. take a step or two in 
making amends for our faults, as he did, when 
he said, "I have sinned, in that I have betrayed 
the innocent blood," and when he cast dowm his 
ill-gotten gains in the temple. True repentance, 
according to John's jDreaching, must be known 
by its fruits. All must resist the temptations in- 
cident to their calling, and do acts of kindness at 
the cost of personal self-sacrific«ii They must also 
look in the direction of the Lamb of God to whom 
the Baptist pointed them, follow the Lamb, in- 
quire of Him, make themselves over to Him. 



410 6" 7'. JOHN BAPTIST'S DAY. 

Very practical, indeed, was repentance accord- 
ing to John's preaching. 

'■'And after his example constantly" (that is, 
with constancy, persevering and persisting in it) 
" speak the truth." John spoke the truth doc- 
trinally, when he pointed out Christ as the Lamb 
of Grod, and said, " He that believeth on the Son 
hath everlasting life." He spoke the truth mor- 
ally, and at the greatest risk of giving offence and 
of alienating his auditors, w^hen he called the 
Pharisees and Sadducees, who came to his Bap- 
tism, a generation of vipers, a censure which in 
so many words our Blessed Lord adopted from 
his forerunner; and again, when he said to Herod 
respecting his brother Philip's wife, — said plainly 
and bluntly, and without using courtly phrase or 
circumlocution, — "It is not lawful for thee to 
have her." This plain speaking entailed on him 
the deadly enmity of Herodias, and eventually 
cost him his head. 

"Boldly rebuke vice." It is a difficult duty to 
perform, — this rebuking of vice; but yet it is a 
duty, and recognized as such both in the Old and 
New Testaments, "Thou shalt in any wise re- 
buke thy neighbor, and not suffer sin upon him;" 
" Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works 
of darkness, but rather reprove them." Such a 
reproof, as the passage in Leviticus shows, is in- 
volved in the lov« of our neighbor, and is a part 
of that love; and therefore can never be admin- 
istered properly or successfully except in a genu- 
ine spirit of love. 



ST. JOHN BAPTIST'S DAY. 411 

"And patieuth' suffer for the truth's sake." 
The word "patiently" shows the view, which in 
all probability the framers of this prayer took of 
the Baptist's state of mind during his imjorison 
ment. The modern commentators generally sup- 
pose that his sending his disciples to our Lord, 
to ask whether He was the expected Messiah, in- 
•dicated some doubts which had found place in 
his own mind on the subject; that he was dis- 
heartened and shaken in his faith, when he found 
that God allowed him to languish in a prison. Un- 
worthy thoughts of one of the most eminent saints 
and servants of God, who have ever let their light 
shine before men ! He suffered jjatiently for the 
truth's sake, suffered as he had lived, bravely, con- 
stantly, joyfull}^, " a burning and shining light " 
in the prison, as he had been in the wilderness, 
"burnino'" with zeal to finish his work on earth 
and glorify the Son of God, " shining " with a 
spiritual radiance borrowed from communion 
with God, and diffused around him by a holy 
example even unto the end. 

This Festival constitutes an exception to other 
Saints' Days, in the circumstance of the saint's 
birth being the event commemorated, not his 
death. 

Usually it is the anniversary (or supposed an- 
niversary) of a saint's death, which the Church sol- 
emnizes by special prayer, prayer in which his 
name is rehearsed before God, and some of his 
acts recorded. And in making such an arrange- 
ment, she has been guided by a true instinct. 



412 ST. JOHN BAPTIST'S DAY. 

The world addresses to Us children congratula- 
tions and words of affectionate greeting on their 
birthday; the Church to hers on the day of their 
death. And the principle on which this is done 
is that announced in the words, that '^ precious 
in the sight of the Lord is the death of His 
saints;" that is, as one of our best modern com- 
mentators on the Psalms puts it: "Their death is 
not lightly permitted bj Him, and, when per- 
mitted, prized by Him as their final act of self- 
surrender." 

Indeed, before the Reformation the death of St. 
John the Baptist, as well as his nativity, was com- 
memorated, the former on the 29th of August, as 
the latter still is on the 24th of June. The Gos- 
pel ap|)ointed for the former day in the Sarum 
Missal was St. Mark's graphic account of the 
Baptist's death, while in the CoUect for it he is 
called "St. John the Baptist, and thy martyr," 
he having died for the truth's sake, and Christ 
being "the truth." But to have retained two 
festivals of St. John the Baptist in the Reformed 
Calendar would have been to place him on a 
higher level than the Apostles and Evangelists. 



ST. PETER'S DAY. 413 



5t ^Peter'is ©ag* 

Almiyliiy God, loho by thy Son Jesus Christ didst 
give to thy Apostle St. Peter many excellent gifts, 
and conimandest him earnestly to feed thy flock; 
Make, ice beseech thee, all Bishops and Pastors dU- 
igenily to preach thy holy tcord, and the people obe- 
diently to follow the same, thai they may receive the 
croicn of everlasting glory; through Jesus Christ our 
Lord. Amen, (a. d. 1549.) 

THE Festivals of St. Peter and St. Paul were 
formerly combined, cliieflj on the ground 
of the ancient tradition that they suffered mar- 
tyrdom under Nero, the one by the cross, the 
other by the sword, on the same day. The tra- 
dition is not a very certain one; it probably or- 
iginated with Dionysius, bishop of Corinth, in 
the latter part of the second century. Living so 
near their time, and being bishop of a church 
to Avhich St. Paul addressed two inspired letters, 
Dionysius is a good authority. He does not, how- 
ever, say that the Apostles suffered on the same 
day, but only about the same time. The old 
Collect of the Sarum Missal traced up the faith 
and worship of the Christian Church under Christ 
to St. Peter and St. Paul, as follows: "O God, 
who hast consecrated this day by the martyrdom 
of thy Apostles, St. Peter and St. Paul; Grant 
unto illy Church that, as her religion took its 
rise from them, so she may in all things follow 
the precepts which they gave; through Jesus 



414 ST. PETER'S DAY. 

Christ our Lord." But, it being justty con- 
sidered that two such Saints as St. Peter and 
Paul deserved separate commemorations, a new 
Collect of course became necessary, referring to 
St. Peter alone; and accordingly that which is 
now before us made its first appearance in King- 
Edward's First Book of Common Prayer, a. d. 1549. 

"O Almighty God, who by thy Son Jesus 
Christ didst give to thy Apostle St. Peter many 
excellent gifts." What are the excellent gifts al- 
luded to? I have no doubt that the passage 
chiefly in the thoughts of the writer of the Col- 
lect was the promise of Christ to Peter after his 
confession: "I say also unto thee, That thou art 
Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; 
and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. 
And I will give unto thee the kej^s of the king- 
dom of heaven : and whatsoever thou shalt bind 
on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatso- 
ever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in 
heaven." 

The first "excellent gift" here mentioned is 
this — that upon the rock of the confession, which 
St. Peter was the first to make, the Christian 
Church is founded. 

Then the next " excellent gift," after this dis- 
tinguishing honor conferred upon St. Peter, is 
that of the keys, which Christ Himself placed in 
his hand. The keys are two, the key of the 
Word, and the key of the Sacraments. St. Peter 
it was who preached the first Christian Sermon 
on the day of Pentecost, which was the means 



.97^. PETER'S DAY. 415 

of converting three thousand souls. Then "they 
that gladly received his word were baptized" all 
of them under his auspices, and in pursuance of 
his exhortations, many of them doubtless by his 
hand; here was the ke}' of the Sacraments, giv- 
ing formal admission to the kingdom of heaven 
which had been newly set up among men. An- 
other short Sermon, to which the heahng of the 
man at the Beautiful gate gave occasion, jDroved 
to be another successful cast of the fisherman's 
net, for by means of this second sermon the 
three thousand souls converted on the day of 
Pentecost became j^i*e. 

Then, again, the Lord Jesus Christ granted to 
St. Peter the promise of ratifying in heaven his 
sentences of binding' and loosins;. " Bindino* " 

o o o 

and "loosing," in the phraseology current among 
the Jewish doctors of the time, meant either lay- 
ing restrictions upon a particular practice, or, on 
the other hand, permitting and sanctioning it. 
At the Apostolic council of Jerusalem, St. Peter, 
the only member of the council whose speech is 
given (with the exception of St. James, who was 
the presiding bishop and summed up the debate), 
" loosed " the non-observance by the Gentiles of 
the ceremonial law, by referring to what had 
passed in the house of Cornelius and declaring 
such non-observance to be on that ground per- 
fectly free and admissible. " God, which know- 
eth the hearts, bare them witness, giving them 
the Holy Ghost, even as He did unto us. . . . Now 
therefore why tempt ye God, to put a yoke upon 



416 ST. PETER'S DAY. 

the neck of the disciples, which neither our fathers 
nor we Avere able to bear ? " — Then, finally, we 
find St. Peter raising the dead in the person of 
Dorcas, and also a notice of miracles wrought 
by him in a peculiar and exceptional way, — 
" They brought forth the sick into the streets, 
and laid them on beds and couches, that at the 
least the shadow of Peter passing by might over- 
shadow some of them." And were not these in- 
deed " many excellent gifts," — the gift of the 
primary confession of Christ as the Son of God; 
the gift of the keys of the kingdom of heaven, 
both for Jews and Gentiles; the gift of saying- 
such words of censure and restriction on one 
hand, of approval and permission on the other, 
as heaven itself should ratify; the gift of a power 
to raise the dead to life, and to throw a shadow 
which should have in it a healing virtue ? How 
great an Apostle must St. Peter have been, to 
have been endowed through Jesus Christ vath 
such gifts as these ! 

" And commandest him earnestly to feed thy 
flock." In this clause reference is made to the 
thrice -repeated commission addressed to the 
Apostle after the Resurrection, a commission 
which was actually needed, as without it the 
Apostle might easily have supposed that any 
powers of ministry and government, which 
might have been entrusted to him in the 
Lord's lifetime, had been cancelled by his 
shameful fall. He must have known indeed 
that he was pardoned personally, from the cir- 



ST. PETER'S DAY. 417 

cumstance of our Lord's having sent a message 
to liim bv the women, and afterwards havino- 
appeared to him on the Resurrection Da}'. But 
a man may be pardoned, and 3^et not reinstated 
in a high and honorable office. And St. Peter 
probably felt that without explicit reinstatement 
on our Lord's part, he could not venture to 
wield those powers of the keys, and of binding 
and loosing, with which before his fall he had 
been entrusted. Hence, while he is required to 
profess his love to Christ three times, as a coun- 
terpoise to his threefold denial, he is thrice bid- 
den to feed the flock, though the word used for 
"feed" on the second occasion is a word of more 
general signification, and should rather be trans- 
lated "tend;'" "Feed my lambs;" "Tend my 
sheep;" "Feed my sheep." The three commis- 
sions embrace the whole range of pastoral ad- 
ministration; and it is not a little remarkable 
that " tend " (or " shepherd ") should be the cen- 
tral word, and should have the narrower word 
"feed" standing on either side of it. To "tend" 
(or " shepherd ") Christ's sheep, is not merely 
to preach to them, not merely to minister Sac- 
raments to them, though it embraces both these ; 
it is also to govern them, to carry on their en- 
tire spiritual administration. — Observe the word 
" earnestl}^," which is used by the framers of the 
Collect to denote the threefold rejoetition of the 
charge. The thrice-repeated prayer of Christ 
in the garden ("he left them, and went away 
again, and prayed the third time, saying the same 



418 ST. PETER'S DAY. 

words ") is thus represented by St. Luke: " And 
being in an agony He prayed inore earnestly." 

" Make, we beseech thee, all Bishops and Pas- 
tors." In the Scotch Book of 1637 it is, "Bish- 
0]3S, Presbyters, and Ministers; " but both Priests 
and Deacons are embraced under the word "Pas- 
tors," the Deacon being authorized to preach, if 
thereto licensed by the Bishop, and it being part 
of his Office " to assist the Priest in Divine Ser- 
vice, and specially when he ministereth the holy 
Communion, and to help him in the distribution 
thereof." 

" Diligently to preach thy holy "Word." "What 
connection can be traced between this and the 
earlier clauses of the Collect ? Possibly the fol- 
lowing. The notice of St. Peter's " many excel- 
lent gifts," and of the threefold charge to feed 
the flock, given him by our Lord's own lips, 
might perhaps raise the idea that no less em- 
inent person should presume to succeed to St. 
Peter's office, or to execute his functions. But 
was this St. Peter's own view ? Quite the con- 
trary. He expressly devolves his charge of feed- 
ing upon others. " The presbyters which are 
among you I exhort, who am also a presby- 
ter. . . . Feed" (or "tend" — the central and 
most comprehensive word in the charge which 
he had himself received from the Lord) "the 
fiock of God which is among you, taking the 
oversight thereof, not by constraint, but ivillingly; 
not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind." Ob- 
serve that these words represent the " diligently " 



ST. PETER'S DAY. 419 

of the Collect, just as the " earnestly " of the for- 
mer clause was meant to express the threefold 
repetition of the charge. A man ayIio under- 
takes a thing- of his own freewill, and as liking it, 
is sure to throw his heart into it and to do it 
"diiigentk." 

"And the x^eople obediently to follow the 
same." A flock who did not follow the Word of 
God preached to them by their Pastor, but were 
disobedient to it, would by their disobedience 
impair the lustre of his crown. For surely thus 
much is indicated by the passage : " Obey them 
that have the rule over you, and submit your- 
selves: for they watch for youi* souls, as they 
that must give account, that they may do it with 
joy, and not with grief: for that is unprofitable 
for you." For some amount of ministerial suc- 
cess must necessarily follow on the diligent em- 
plo;y^nent of ministerial gifts, since God cannot 
but bless the efforts of such of His ministers as 
are really faithful and zealous; and, therefore, 
if at the last day a man's ministry should show 
absolutely no increase, the account to be given 
of the failure must be that there was no spirit- 
uality, no heart, no zeal, no diligence in the ex- 
ercise of the ministry. It is a pregnant thought 
this, that the eternal blessedness of ministers and 
people is so bound up by God together, that the 
one cannot be consummated without the other. 
Thank the much-abused Cranmer for importing 
that thought into this beautiful prayer of his. 

" That they may receive the crown of everlast- 



420 ST. PETER'S DAY. 

ing glory." If we pursue the line of thought 
just opened out, this "they" will mean "both 
ministers and j)eople together," — a very legiti- 
mate extension to the flock of the promise made 
"in 1 Peter v. 4 to the presbyters. For the crown 
of glory is by other Scriptures covenanted to all 
the faithful no less than to the faithful pastor: 
" Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of 
righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, 
shall give me at that day: and not to me only, 
but unto all them also that love His appearing.'' 
Unfading crown of glory St. Peter calls it, per- 
haps from his lively reminiscences of the Trans- 
figuration, the foretaste of everlasting blessed- 
ness enjoyed in which the Apostle had sued for 
permanence in the words: "Lord, it is good for 
us to be here: if thou wilt, let us make here 
three tabernacles; one for thee, and one for 
Moses, and one for Elias." But he soon found 
that the light faded, and the forms of Moses and 
Elias melted into thin air, and the bright over- 
shadowing cloud disjDersed, and the sweet but 
awful resonance of the Father's voice ceased to 
thrill on his ear, and the ecstasy gave way to the 
dull realities of daily life. Not so shall it be, 
thought he, with "the crown of glory," which 
the chief Shepherd " in that day " shall award to 
the under shepherds. Not of fading bays is it 
made, but of amaranth, of celestial immortelles — 
it "fadeth not away." 



ST. JAMES THE APOSTLE. 421 



St. Samcs tfje Slpostle* 

Grant, merciful God, that as thine holy Apostle Saint 
James, leaving his father and all that he had, loithout 
delay was obedient unto the calling of thy Son Jesus 
Christ, and followed Him; so ice, forsaking all worldly 
and carnal affections, may be evermore ready to fol- 
low thy holy commandments; through Jesus Christ 
our Lord. Amen. (a. d. 1549.) 

THE Collect and Epistle for this Festival date 
from the First Prayer Book of King Ed- 
ward the Sixth in 1549. The Sariim Collect had 
recited no incident of the life of St. James, and 
withal was made unfit for use in the Reformed 
Church by a petition for the Apostle's guardian- 
ship of the Church on earth. The Sarum E^^istle 
had been that passage of the Epistle to the Ephe- 
sians, which describes Christians as having the 
right of citizenship in the heavenly Jerusalem, 
and as " built ujDon the foundation of the apos- 
tles and j)rophets " — a grand passage, bat one 
too general for the occasion, when there was 
something more specific ready to hand. So the 
Reformers substituted for it the brief account of 
St. James's martyrdom which is given in the 
Acts — an incident all the more interesting, be- 
cause it is the only inspired record of the death 
of any of the xVpostles, and because it was a ful- 
filment of our Lord's prediction in the Gospel of 
the day that St. James and St. John should drink 
of His cup, and be baptized with that baptism of 



422 ST. JAMES THE APOSTLE. 

suffering, which He had been Himself baptized 
with. And they based their new Collect on the 
recital of the call of St. James, as recorded by 
St. Matthew and St. Mark, thus very adroitly 
contriving that in the course of the Communion 
Service on this Festival every inspired notice of 
the Apostle's history should be embraced, with 
the exception only of his proposal, in concert 
with his brother, to call down fire from heaven 
on the inhospitable Samaritans. This was omitted 
in accordance with the obvious rule not to bring 
into view the infirmities of saints, when we sol- 
emnly commemorate them. 

" Grant, O merciful God, that as thine holy 
Apostle St. James, leaving his father and all that 
he had." The sons of Zebedee, James and John, 
had something to leave for Christ's sake. In the 
first place, theii' father was alive (which, probably 
was not the case with the older pair of Apostles, 
St. Peter and St, Andrew), and they acted as his 
partners and assistants in the trade of a fisher- 
man. Thus there v/as, in their obedience to the 
call, the rupture of a natural tie. But St. James 
had this world's goods to leave as well as this 
world's lie?.. " They left their father Zebedee," 
says St. Mark, "in the ship with the hired ser- 
vants." Since their father had " hired servants," 
they were probably in better circumstances, and 
in a somewhat higher class of society, than the 
earlier called pair. But their interest in the 
boat, in the nets, in the proceeds of the fishing, 
and in the service of these hired servants — they 



ST. 'JAMES THE APOSTLE. 423 

gave it all up when they heard the Bridegroom's 
voice. "It was not much," j)erhaps some will 
sa}'. Yet. like the widow's two mites which make 
a farthing, it was " all that " they " had, even all " 
their "living." God looks not to the largeness 
of our gifts, but only to the proportion which 
they bear to our j)Ossessions, and to the amount 
of seK-sacrilice to which they testif}^" 

" WilJiout delay was obedient unto the calling of 
thy son Jesus Christ, and followed Him." " They 
immediately left the ship and their father and fol- 
lowed Him," says St. Matthew. It is the same 
Greek word which is used to denote the instan- 
taneousness of our Lord's cures. "Immediately 
his leprosy was cleansed." Yet think not that 
they had no previous knowledge of Jesus, or that 
they had experienced no previous searchings of 
heart and self-communings in regard to His mis- 
sion. They must have heard much of Him from 
their partners, St. Andrew and St. Peter; and it 
is more than probable that St. John was himself 
the other disciple of St. John the Baptist, who, 
with St. Andrew, had heard our Lord indicated 
by the Baptist as the Lamb of God, and had 
thereupon followed Him, and spent the night 
under His roof. St. John doubtless had com- 
municated his convictions to his brother, as St. 
xlndrew did to St. Peter, and now this " imme- 
diate " obedience to the heavenly call was the last 
stage in a process, which had been going on in 
their minds. 

" So we, forsaking all worldly and carnal a£fec- 



424 ST. JAMES THE APOSTLE. 

tions." Christ has called us, if not with an au- 
dible voice, yet as clearly and as certainly as He 
called St. James; but our obedience to the call — 
our prompt obedience to it — does not usually ne- 
cessitate, as it did in the case of the Apostles, the 
leaving father and mother and all that we have. 
I say, not usually, because even now circumstances 
might, and sometimes do, arise, which would 
make the sacrifice of property and domestic ties 
inevitable. It is quite conceivable that a man, 
who felt himself called and qualified to be a mis- 
sionary, might be drawn in another direction by 
his family surroundings, and by the sacrifice of 
worldly prosjDects and preferment at home, which 
a missionary's life would involve. First, " ivor/dly 
affections." There is in all of us, and most per- 
haps in those who least suspect themselves of any 
such tendency, a disposition to clutch very greedily 
at, and to hold very tight, the good things of this 
world, as represented by money. The evil of this 
disposition — that which constitutes it a " loorldly 
affection" — is a certain rooted persuasion that 
worldly resources, and the comforts and luxuries, 
which they are the means of procuring, are all 
we need to make us happy. Remove this per- 
suasion, and the worldliness of the affection 
ceases; the mere desire of a competence is not 
" worldly " in any wrong sense of the word, and 
is merely the legitimate action of self-love, from 
which we cannot by any possible effort free ^pur- 
selves. Secondly, '^carnal affections." Manj^, 
who are not placing their happiness in worldly 



ST. JAMES THE APOSTLE. 425 

goods, 3'et place it, almost unconsciously to them- 
selves, in the free scope and reciprocal exercise 
of the domestic affections. If in no sense ^vealth 
is their God, 3'et home is to them an earthly Par- 
adise, in which they may entrench themselves 
against the rebuffs of fortune and the world's un- 
kindness, and find all that is required to content 
the soul and satisfy its cravings. Such sentiments 
have a show of beaut}" and excellence, which ih.ej 
do not justify upon examination; they are only a 
more plausible violation of the precept, "Little 
children, keep yourselves fi'om idols." We must 
forsake " carnal affections," no less than " worldly" 
ones, if we would follow Christ, and j^lace oui' 
happiness on high out of the reach of death and 
bereavement, — " by purest pleasures unbeguiled, 
to idolize or wife or child." 

" May be evermore ready " (the impediment of 
worldly and carnal affections being removed) "to 
follow thy holy commandments." The command- 
ments of God are here represented as doing for 
us what Christ did to the outward ears of His 
disciples — calling us, bidding us follow them, 
making a demand upon us to come after them. 
And who sees not how just and striking an image 
this is, who has ever felt a command of God visit 
his inner man and lay hold upon his conscience ? 
God give us grace, when this is so with us, to 
follow the inwa]"d movement promptly, zealously, 
lovingly as holy angels do when God's behests 
are made known to them. Let us follow with 
alacrity, according to that word of the Psalmist, 



426 S7\ BARTHOLOMEW THE APOSTLE. 

"I made liaste, and prolonged not the time, to 
keep thy commandments." For unless we so fol- 
low, what evidence have we of our own sincerity 
in the prayer which we so often offer, " Thy will 
be done in earth, as it is in heaven " ? 



St. 33art})olomcto tl}e Apostle. 

Ahnighiy and everlasting God, who didst give to thine 
Apostle Bartholomew grace truly to believe and to 
preach thy Word; Grant, we beseech thee, unto thy 
Church, to love that Word which he believed, and both 
to preach and i^ecelve the same; through Jesus Christ 
our Lord. Amen. (a. d. 1549, and Miss. Sae. ) 

ST. BAETHOLOMEW is an Apostle of whom 
Scripture tells us nothing beyond his name. 
For that the Nathanael mentioned by St. John is 
the same person as St. Bartholomew, is a conjecture 
which was first started in the twelfth century, and 
which St. Augustine certainly did not adopt, as 
he gives reasons to explain why Christ, who 
speaks so higlily in praise of Nathanael, did not 
call him to the Apostleship. This scantiness of 
information in regard to St. Bartholomew appears 
in the Collect, Epistle, and Gospel for his day. 
There is, however, a tradition that St. Bartholo- 
mew was a man of noble birth, which may be 
supposed to give some special appropriateness to 
the Gospel. For the strife among the Apostles 
" which of them should be accounted the great- 



ST. BARTHOLOMEW THE APOSTLE. 427 

est," is thought to have taken its rise from the 
higher rank which Bartholomew had inherited. 

" O Ahnighty and everlasting God, who didst 
give to thine Apostle Bartholomew grace truly 
to believe and to preach thy Word." The point 
here is, that true or sincere belief of the Word 
(the Word being the "word of reconciliation" 
through Christ) leads to the utterance of con- 
victions by preaching. In the deej^h'-grounded 
faith of the Apostles there was a constraining 
power which opened their lips. St. Peter and 
St. John, when threatened straitly by the coun- 
cil, and bidden " not to speak at all nor teach in 
the name of Jesus," say that they cannot refrain: 
" We cannot but speak the things which we have 
seen and heard." No one who truly believes can 
wrap uj) his convictions in his own breast; for 
indeed the terms of salvation run thus: — "If 
thou shalt confess ivith thy mouth the Lord Jesus, 
and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised 
Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved." And 
again, living convictions of faith will utter them- 
selves of necessity in a holy example. They who 
are under the power of them will "let their light 
shine before men, that men may see their good 
works, and glorify their Father which is in heaven." 

" Grant, we beseech thee, unto thy Church, to 
love that word which he believed." The Word 
of God under the old Dispensation took chiefly 
the form of precept. And now, when the Word 
of God has taken the form of a " word of recon- 
ciliation," and the leading idea of it is that " God 



428 ST. BARTHOLOMEW THE APOSTLE. 

was in Christ reconciling* tlie world unto Him- 
self, not imputing their trespasses unto them;" 
can we think that any affection towards the 
Word short of loving it Avill meet God's re- 
quirements ? We are expressly warned by two 
Apostles that the love of the truth is a characteris- 
tic of all saving faith. St. Paul speaks of strong- 
delusions, which will be sent by God in the time 
of Antichrist upon certain damnable errorists in 
those days, "because they received not the love 
of the truth, that they might be saved." 

"And both to preach and receive the same." 
The word " receive " was added by Bishop Cosin 
at the last Revision, and a most pregnant and 
significant word it is. The petition of the Col- 
lect of 1549 was: — "Grant, we beseech thee, 
unto thy Church, both to love that he believed, 
and to preach that he taught." The Eevisers, 
in one of their happiest moods, substituted for 
the latter clause, " and both to preach and re- 
ceive the same." The Church is composed of 
two great classes — pastors and flocks, clergy and 
laity; the ambassadors, and those to whom the 
ambassadors are sent. These classes are, in 
God's point of view, so distinguished from one 
another that they are represented in Scripture 
by totally different images. The first are fellow- 
workers with God, whether in spiritual husbandry 
or spiritual architecture ; the second are the field 
tilled, or the building reared. The first are stars; 
the second are candlesticks. For both these classes 
it is equally necessary that thej^ should "love " the 



ST. MATTHEW THE APOSTLE. 429 

Word, which the Apostles believed and preached. 
What, then, is the special duty of the Christian 
lailij as regards God's Word ? " To receive the 
same." " Receive with meekness," saj's St. James, 
"the engrafted Tvord, which is able to save your 
souls." And to receive it with meekness is to 
receive it under the deep persuasion that, although 
human instruments are employed to announce 
it, it is not man's word, but God's. To receive it 
as God's loord, resting on His own authority, is 
essential to its efficac}", as it is said: "When ye 
received the word of God which ye heard of us; 
ye received it not as the ivord of men, hut as it is in 
truth, the word of God, which effectually worketh 
also in you that believe." 



St. Hattfieto tf)e Apostle. 

AlmigliU) God, irho hy ilty blessed Son didst call 
Maltliew from the receipt of custom to be an Apostle 
and Evangelist; Grant us grace to forsake all covet- 
ous desires, and inordinate love of riches, and to 
follow the same thy Son Jesus Christ, who liveth 
and reigneili with thee and the Holy Ghost, one God, 
icoiid without end. Amen. (a. d. 1549.) 

THIS Collect was substituted in 1549 for the 
objectionable one which the Reformers 
found in the Sarum Missal. Since it was com- 
posed, it has only received two slight verbal 
alterations. 



430 ST. MATTHEW THE APOSTLE. 

" O Almigiity God, who by thy blessed Sou 
didst call Matthew." It is worth a passing ob- 
servation how" things done by our Lord Himself, 
or by His Chnrch, are in the Collects traced up 
to God the Father, and ascribed to Sun, our 
Lord and the Church being regarded merely as 
the instruments of a result, in bringing about 
w^hich God was the chief agent. Thus, in the 
Collect for St. Peter's Day, God is regarded as 
giving St. Peter the kej^s, and the power of bind- 
ing and loosing, and as thrice charging him to 
feed the sheep. Our Lord most j)ointedly and 
emphatically disclaimed all independence of God: 
" The words that I speak unto you I speak not 
of mj^self : but the Father that dwelleth in me, 
He doeth the works." And the Apostles take 
care to echo their Master's teaching in this re- 
spect, Christ "was manifest in these last times 
for you, who by Him do believe in God, that 
raised Him up from the dead, and gave Him 
glory; that your faith and hope might he in God." 

We need not suppose — nay, it would be in- 
consistent with the history to suppose — that St. 
Matthew knew nothing of our Lord before his 
call. It would seem as if he resided in or near 
Capernaum, and, this being the case, he can 
hardly fail to have heard of the Miracle wrought 
upon the centurion's servant, upon Peter's wife's 
mother, and upon multitudes of persons ailing 
with divers diseases or possessed with devils. 
He may even have been among our Lord's lis- 
teners, when He delivered the Sermon on the 



ST. MATTHEW THE APOSTLE. 431 

Mount; and the warning which he then heard 
against laying ujd " treasures upon earth, where 
moth and rust doth eorruj)t,'' may have sunk 
deejo into his mind, unhinged his affections from 
earthly things, and brought him into a state of 
readiness to obey the call of Christ as soon as 
it was issued. 

"From the receipt of custom." Those Jews, 
who condescended to act as tax-gatherers to the 
Roman Government (levying the public imposts, 
and keeiDing for themselves all the proceeds of a 
particular tax, which were in excess of the sum 
that it was expected to }ield), were naturally 
odious to their countrymen, as reminding them 
of their subjection to a Gentile power, and fur- 
nishing that power with the means of maintaining 
its supremac}^ But the publicans not only bore 
a bad character, but in the main deserved it. 
Their temptation — the temptation which St. John 
the Baptist instructed them to resist — was to ex- 
act more than that which was appointed them; 
and, under the pressure of this temptation, the 
great majority of them became covetous, grasp- 
ing, and extortionate. So rare was an upright 
and faithful discharge of the publican's duty, 
that in the case of one Sabinus, who held it in 
Asia, it was acknowledged b}^ the erection to him 
of an effigy in the cities of his province, with this 
inscription — " To him who discharged the office 
of a publican honorably." And when our Lord, 
at St. Matthew's table, is expostulated with for 
eating and drinking with publicans and sinners, 



432 ST. MATTHEW THE APOSTLE. 

he justifies himself, not by denying the sinfulness 
of the publicans, but simply by alleging that it 
was just their sinfulness or spiritual malady, 
which so urgently demanded the care of the 
sj^iritual physician. There is no doubt great 
significance in the fact of St. Matthew's having 
been called from his ledger and his till — from 
a pursuit so closely connected with " mammon of 
unrighteousness," " to be an Apostle and Evan- 
gelist." But, since such trades are in themselves 
innocent, and even essential to the wellbeing of 
society as it is at present constituted, and since 
even in the very centre of such pursuits His own 
elect are here and there to be found, it pleased 
Almighty God, in the person of His Son, to be 
entertained by two publicans, St. Matthew and 
ZaccliEEus, and to raise the first of these to one 
of the highest positions in His kingdom, making 
him both an Apostle and Evangelist, a twofold 
honor never put upon any other son of man but 
the beloved disciple himself. Thus would He 
show us that the city, no less than the country, 
may have its eminent saints,^ and that no man's 
circumstances and lot are so unfavorable for the 

J "There are in this loud stunning tide 
Of human care and crime, 
With whom the melodies abide 
Of th' everlasting chime; 
Who carry music in their heart, 
Through dusky lane and wrangling mart, 
Plying their daily task with busier feet, 
Because their secret souls a holy strain repeat." 
(Keble's "Christian Year;" St. Matthew.) 



ST. MATTHEW THE APOSTLE. 433 

attainment of sanctit}', that he may not by grace 
rise sui^erior to their influence. 

" Grant us grace to forsake all covetous desires 
and inordinate love of riches." Here again, as 
in the Collect for St. James's Day, we find a ref- 
erence to the renunciation and profession of obe- 
dience in the Baptismal Yow. We do not prom- 
ise (for that were a rash vow) that such desires 
shall never rise up in our hearts, but that, when 
they do, we will not follow them, but go in an 
opposite direction. And, again, mark the guard- 
edness of the language before us. It is not the 
desire of a competence which we are to forsake; 
food and raiment are a necessary provision; our 
"heavenly Father knoweth that" we "have need 
of " them ; and our Lord has bidden us seek them 
continually in one of the petitions which He has 
put into our mouths — " Give us day by day our 
daily bread." But it is the craving and anxious 
effort for more than a competence, the disposition 
which there is in all of us, while "having food 
and raiment," not to "be therewith content," 
which constitutes a " covetous " desire, and which 
we here ask grace to forsake. The Greek word 
translated covetousness in the New Testament is 
very expressive and instructive. According to 
its derivation, it means the habit of one who seeks 
to have more. Covetousness is not the seeking a 
sufficiency, but a craving and grasj)ing after 
more than a sufficiency. 

"And inordinate love of money." By "inor- 
dinate " — an adjective only twice used in our 



434 ST. MATTHEW THE APOSTLE. 

Authorized Yersion, once with the substantive 
"loYe" and once with "affection" — is meant un- 
chastised, — not under the control of the reason, 
freely allowed to run rampant, and engross to 
itself all the energies of the soul. There may be 
the strongest love of money without a particle of 
the miser's niggardliness. Wherever riches are 
trusted in to make us happy, and the possession 
of them is regarded as giving a security against 
evil, in that heart exists the " inordinate love of 
money," in a higher or lower stage of develop- 
ment. And, wherever riches increase, this ten- 
dency to " set our hearts upon them " sets in 
u]Don us with a steady and deep current. And 
our Lord's strong (but not unduly strong) words 
about the exceeding difficulty of a rich man's sal- 
vation, show us that it requires a very large and 
special supply of divine grace to resist tliis ten- 
dency. Nevertheless, it has been resisted by 
eminent servants of God both under the Old 
and New Dispensation. Abraham resisted it, 
and Daniel, and Zacchseus and St. Matthew; nay, 
Job the Edomite, who was outside the pale of 
God's covenant altogether, asserts that he re- 
sisted it in the days of his prosperity. And 
what man has done with fewer assistances from 
above, it is competent for him to do with more 
of these assistances. 

"And to follow the same thy Son Jesus Christ." 
We may follow Christ with our prayers, refusing 
to let Him go, except He bless us. We may 
follow Him by proposing Him to ourselves as 



ST. MICHAEL AND ALL ANGELS. 435 

our model, and co2:»Yiug His example, which in 
another Collect is called *' following the blessed 
steps of His most holy life." And we may follow 
Him with the desires and affections of our hearts, 
as the Apostles at the Ascension did with their 
eyes, seeking "those things wdiich are above, 
where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God." 
Thrice happy are we, if it can be testified of us 
in all these ways, as is testified of St. Andrew 
and another: "Then Jesus turned, and aaw them 
following." 

&t IHicljael anti all Slngete* 

Everlasting God, who hast ordained and constituted 
the services of Angels and men in a wonderful order; 
Mercifully grant, that as thy holy Angels alway do 
thee service in heaven, so by thy appointment they 
may succor and defend ns an earth; through Jesus 
Chinsi our Lord. Amen. 

Deus, qui m,iro ordine angelorum minister ia hominum- 
que dispensas; concede jyropitius, i<t a quibus tibi 
ministrantibus in coslo senper assistitur, ab his in 
terra vita nostra muniatur. Per. (Geeg. Sac, 
Miss. Sar.) 

THIS Collect is a translation of that which is 
found in the Sarum Missal. It may be 
traced back to the Sacramentary of Gregory, 

"O Everlasting God, who hast ordained and 
constituted the services of Angels and men in a 
wonderful order." In the writings of the Fathers, 
there is much of mere speculation in regard to 
the angels, which we shall do well to discard as 



436 ST. MICHAEL AND ALL ANGELS. 

a presumptuous intrusion into things which we 
have not seen, and also as tending to imperil the 
supremacy, which the Lord of the angels should 
hold in our hearts and minds. All that Scrip- 
ture gives us to know for certain is, that there is 
a distinction of ranks and degrees among the 
angels, a constituted order among them, even as 
there is in human society. And hence it is that 
Bishop Bull, in his famous Sermon " On the dif- 
ferent degrees of bliss in heaven," infers that 
there will certainly be such degrees. " Seeing 
in the angelical polity there are divers orders, 
ranks, and degrees, can we imagine that the 
communion of the saints in heaven will be a lev- 
elled society? This is utterly incredible." 

We may also, without indulging any specula- 
tion, very reasonably observe that not only every 
earthty society is made up of different grades and 
orders of men, but that this is the case with the 
society which Christ founded, — with the Church, 
or kingdom of God upon earth. " God hath set 
some in the Church" (saj^s St. Paul, enumerat- 
ing the different ministries of the Apostolic age); 
"first, apostles; secondarily, prophets; thirdly, 
teachers; after that, miracles; then gifts of heal- 
ings, helps, governments, diversities of tongues." 
And in the modern Church we have three grades 
of ministers, bishops, priests, and deacons, for 
which we believe that we can show Scriptural 
sanction, and also different gifts in different mem- 
bers of the Church, qualifying for different spheres 
of service in God's vineyard. 



ST. MICHAEL AND ALL ANGELS. 437 

But another observation here suggests itself, 
which shows emphaticall}^ the " wonderfulness " 
of the " order," in which God hath constituted 
the societies of angels and men. As it is clear 
from Holy Scripture that angels concern them- 
selves with the interests of man, and are busied 
in ministrations to men, it might be supposed 
that the most exalted angels have the care and 
guardianship of the most eminent individuals as- 
signed to them as their province. But our Lord 
teaches us that it is the contrary. The highest 
angels, He tells us in the Gospel of the day, are 
the guardians of little children. " Take heed that 
ye despise not one of these little ones; for I say 
unto you, That in heaven their angels do always 
behold the face of My Father which is in heaven." 
The imagery is borrowed from Oriental courts, 
in which onlv the highest courtiers are ad- 
mitted to the presence of the Sovereign. The 
mother's tender guardianship is most needed for 
her youngest child. 

" Mercifully grant, that as thy holy Angels al- 
way do thee service in heaven." The translators 
have here dropped an idea which is Scriptural 
and valuable.. In the Latin Collect the words are, 
" Grant that b}' those who alway aland before thee 
to minister in heaven, our hfe on earth may be 
defended." Here again the reference is to the 
Eastern custom of certain courtiers of exalted 
rank always standing in the presence of the sover- 
eign and waiting on his beliests. So, after the 
silence in heaven at the opening of the seventh 



438 ST. MICHAEL AND ALL ANGELS. 

seal, we read, "I saw the seven angels which 
stood before God." And the angel Gabriel de- 
scribes himself to Zacharias thus: "I am Gabriel, 
that stand in the presence of God." "As thy 
holy Angels alway do thee service in heaven." 
What species of service ? The service of worship 
and adoring contemplation. "Are they not all 
ministering spirits?" says St. Paul in that 23assage 
of the Epistle to the Hebrews, upon which this 
latter clause of the Collect is built. The word 
rendered ministering is that from which our word 
"liturgy" is derived; and its cognate substantive 
is used of the ministrations of Jewish priests in 
the temple, as in the passage: — "he sprinkled 
with blood both the tabernacle, and all the ves- 
sels of the ministry." In short the holy angels 
(under their Lord and ours) are the priests of the 
heavenly temple, who carry on there a ceaseless 
ministry of praise, and who were seen thus en- 
gaged both by Isaiah and by St. John, the former 
of whom saw the six-winged Seraphim, each one 
of whom covered his face with two of his wings, 
and his feet with two, in token of lowliest self- 
abasement; and one cried unto another, and 
said, " Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts; the 
whole earth is full of His glory," wtiile the latter 
beheld through the "door opened in heaven" the 
six-winged living creatures making a similar as- 
cription of praise. 

"So by thy appointment they may succor and 
defend us on earth." The words "by thy ap- 
pointment " are the insertion of the translators, 



ST. MICHAEL AND ALL ANGELS. 439 

and a most valuable insertion they are. The nu- 
merous superstitions, which have gathered round 
and discredited the doctrine of angels, would have 
been to a great extent precluded, had it always 
been remembered that the angels act under God's 
sj^ecial appointment, are nothing more than sub- 
ordinate agents, employed to carry into effect our 
Heavenly Father's purposes of infinite wisdom 
and infinite love. The function of worship rep- 
resents only one half of the life of the angels. If 
with twain of their wings they cover their face, 
and with twain they cover their feet, with twain 
they fly on the execution of God's behests. Ga- 
briel not only stands in the presence of God to 
worship, but speeds forth to the Temple to an- 
nounce the birth of the forerunner to Zacharias 
the priest, and to the grotto at Nazareth, to an- 
nounce to St. Mary the mystery of the holy In- 
carnation and the holy Nativity. God does not 
leave even the highest class of His rational crea- 
tures without active employment in His service. 
" They may succor and defend us upon earth." 
That angels have performed both these services 
for those who shall be heirs of salvation, is a truth 
which lies on the surface of the Bible. Inde- 
pendently of their ministrations to our Lord, the 
Representative, in virtue of His human nature, 
of the whole human family, they succored Elijah 
with heavenly viands and drink after his sleep 
under the juniper tree, — meat, in the strength of 
which he " went forty days and forty nights, unto 
Horeb, the mount of God," — St. Peter, by com- 



440 ST. MICHAEL AND ALL ANGELS. 

ing into his prison cell, and ojDening the doors 
and causing the chains to fall off from his hands, 
and St. Paul, by appearing to him at night in the 
hnrly burly of the tempest at sea, and assuring 
him of safety for himself, and all them that sailed 
with him. They defended Daniel in the lions' 
den, God sending His angels and shutting the 
Hons' mouths, that they should not hurt His ser- 
vant; they watched over Jacob in the vision of the 
great, bright ladder, on which he saw them as- 
cending and descending above his stony couch; 
and again they met him in two bands, to assure 
him of protection m his dreaded interview with 
Esau; and, when Elisha was besieged in Dothan, 
they encircled the mountain on which the city 
stood with " horses and chariots of fire," to over- 
match the great host which the King of Syria 
had sent thither. And, lest it should be thought 
that this angel guardianship and succor are the 
privilege only of eminent saints, and may not 
be looked for by God's ordinary servants, both 
the Psalmist and Apostle generalize the truth, of 
which the Scriptures above referred to furnish 
particular instances : " The angel of the Lord en- 
campeth round about iliem. that fear Him, and de- 
livereth them;" "Because thou hast made the 
Lord, luhich is my refuge, even the most High, thy 

habitation He shall give His angels charge 

over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways. They 
shall bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash 
thy foot against a stone ;" " Are they not all spirits 
ministrant to God, sent forth to do service for 



ST. LUKE THE EVANGELIST. 441 

theii* sakes iiilio i^lxall inherit salvation?" And, be- 
cause our Lord in His human nature was the 
great model and archetype of all, who shall in- 
herit salvation, — the onl}* human Servant of God 
who ever feared God perfectly, and made God 
His habitation by an unbroken confidence of 
heart, — therefore in Him was the tmth of angelic 
guardianship and succor realized to the utmost, 
and on certain occasions in such a manner as to 
be visible to the outward eye. And so far as we, 
too, bear upon us the marks of being " heirs of 
salvation," so far as we, too, fear God, and " set 
our love upon" Him, and "jxit" our "whole trust 
in Him," so far beyond all doubt will His angels 
" by " His " appointment " " succor and defend us 
on earth," although in our case their ministra- 
tions to us will be matter of faith, not of sight. 



$t. lEtifee tfje lE&augelist. 

Almiglitij God, tcho calledst Luke the Physician, ichose 
praise is in the Gospel, to be an Evangelist, and 
Physician of the Soul; May it please thee, that, by 
the wholesovie medicines of the doctrine delivered by 
him, all the diseases of our souls may be healed; 
through the merits of thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord. 
Amen. (a. d. 1549.) 

THE Collect for St. Luke's Day, which our 
Reformers found in the Sarum Missal, 
was a prayer for the intercession of the Evangel- 
ist on our behalf, with a recital of the fact that 



442 ST. LUKE THE EVANGELIST. 

he was crucified for the honor of God's name, — 
an ecclesiastical tradition which, whether true or 
not, has no warrant in Holy Scripture. On both 
these grounds it was discarded, and a new Col- 
lect framed in 1549. This Collect received at the 
last Bevision a few verbal alterations, the most 
important of which was the insertion of the word 
" Evangelist " before, and in connection with, the 
phrase " Physician of the soul," and of the words 
"the merits of" before "thy Son Jesus Christ 
our Lord." 

" Almighty God, who calledst Luke. " We know 
neither the time nor the manner of St. Luke's call; 
but the fact of it is certain. Only in three brief 
passages of St. Paul's writings is the Evangelist 
named; but these three passages give us to un- 
derstand respecting him, first, that he was a 
physician, imited to the AjDOstle in the bonds of 
Christian fellowship; second^, that he was of 
Gentile extraction, which appears from the fact 
of his name occurring among those salutations at 
the end of the Epistle to the Colossians, which 
do not come from St. Paul's fellow-workers of the 
circumcision; and, thirdly, that he was St. Paul's 
" fellow-laborer " during his first imprisonment 
at Rome, and in the second and more severe im- 
prisonment stood by him, when others had for- 
saken him, or were called away from his side. 
In addition to these particulars, it appears from 
the Acts that St. Luke joined the Apostle at that, 
to us, intensely interesting and critical j)eriod of 
his career, when the vision of the man of Mace- 



ST. LUKE THE EVANGELIST 443 

donia, imploring spiritual succor, apj^earecl to hira 
in the ni^lit, and in obedience to that indication 
of the will of God, he and his little band of mis- 
sionaries carried the Gospel for the first time into 
the continent of EurojDe. If, from the above data, 
we might venture on a conjecture respecting the 
manner in which St. Luke was called to follow 
Christ, we may very reasonably suppose that the 
numerous and marvellous miracles of healing 
which St. Paul wrought (so far be3'ond any ef- 
fects, to which the art of medicine was com- 
petent), had stirred a peculiar interest in the 
mind of the physician, and that the ministry of 
St. Paul and Barnabas for a whole year at An- 
tioch (traditionally said to be St. Luke's native 
place) had riveted those impressions which the 
miracles had made. 

" Luke the phj^sician." The information that 
St. Luke was a physician is, as we have seen, 
given us by St. Paul. And we find, both in St. 
Luke's Gospel and his Acts, incidental confirma- 
tion of the writer's having been acquainted with, 
and interested in, medicine. The maladies which 
he mentions are described in their proper techni- 
cal terms, as where he calls the fever with which 
Simon's wife's mother was taken " a great fever," 
— fevers being expressly divided b}^ Galen into 
two classes, the greater and the lesser, — and 
where he describes the complaint, of which St. 
Paul cured the father of Publius, as " fevers and 
dysentery ;" it is he alone who records that phys- 
ical concomitant of the Agony, the bloody Sweat, 



444 ST. LUKE TH-E EVANGELIST. 

a phenomenon not unknown to ]oliysicians as apt 
to ensue under a vehement strain of anguish or 
ap23rehension; it is he alone who records the heal- 
ing of Malchus's ear, the only instance on record 
of our Lord's having dealt in the way of miracle 
with a surgical case (and be it remembered that 
the i^hysicians of those days were practitioners of 
surgery rather than of medicine) ; it is he alone 
who has preserved for us the proverb uttered by 
our Lord, in which He assumes to Himself the 
character of the good physician, " Phj^sician, heal 
thyself; " and finally it is he who, in recording 
the commissions to the tw^elve and to the seventy 
(the later incident being peculiar to himself), 
dwells with emj)hasis upon the miraculous cures 
which both those comjDanies were empowered to 
work: "He sent them to preach the kingdom of 
God, and to heal the sick;"' " Lito whatsoever city 
ye enter .... heal the sick that are therein, and 
say unto them, The kingdom of Grod is come nigh 
unto you." 

"Whose praise is in the Gospel." This is one 
of the instances in which our Church interprets 
for us in a certain ivai/ a passage of Holy Scrip- 
ture, which good expositors have interpreted dif- 
ferently. The Church adopts the view of those, 
who think that the traitor Judas received the 
Sacrament of the Lord's Supper before he left 
the supper-room, and founds a warning to com- 
municants on the circumstance of his having done 
so; but this view by no means finds favor with all 
commentators. And similarly the Church, with 



ST. LUKE THE EVANGELIST. 445 

Chrysostom, Ambrose, Jerome, and other Fa- 
thers, holds St. Luke to be the person indicated 
by St. Paul in 2 Cor. viii. 8, as "the brother, 
whose praise is in the Gospel throughout all the 
Churches." This may very j)robably be the case, 
" the brother " in question being further indicated 
as one who was " chosen of the churches to travel 
with " St. Paul (ver. 19), and St. Luke having been 
beyond all question St. Paul's companion in 
travel. And, in this case, " the Gospel " will be 
the written Gospel of St. Luke, written doubtless 
by St. Paul's suggestion, and circulated soon after 
its pubhcation among the Churches of Christen- 
dom; and the meaning of the Apostle in a large 
paraphrase will be this: "We send to you the 
brother, chosen by the churches to be our associ- 
ate in travel, and in whose commendation there 
is no need for us to say anything, inasmuch as 
the narrative of our Lord's acts and words, which 
he has written, and which is read loublicly in your 
assemblies, is his sufficient letter of commendation 
in all the Chiu^ches, wherever the name of Christ 
is named, and His Word jDreached." What- 
ever may be said (and much has been said) against 
this interpretation, it certainly gives more j^oii^t 
and force to the words than to take them as 
mereh' meaning that, in the sphere of the Gospel, 
the labors and services of the person commended 
were generally known and universally esteemed, 
just as, in the sphere of pohtical life, or in the 
scientific or literary world, some men make them- 
selves famous and attain a celebritv. 



446 ST. LUKE THE EVANGELIST. 

"To be an Evangelist and Plivsician of the 
soul." It was one of the happy thoughts of the 
Revisers of 1661 to insert the word "Evangelist." 
For it was just in virtue of his being an evan- 
gelist (or bearer of good tidings) that St. Luke 
was a spiritual physician. He healed souls no 
otherwise than as setting forth Christ (whether 
by his written Gospel or by his oral discourse), 
and explaining the conditions on which His blood 
and grace may be made available to the recovery 
of the soul. And accordingly the, prayer of the 
Collect runs: "Grant that by the wholesome 
medicines of the doctrine delivered by him all 
the diseases of our souls may be healed." In no 
part of the New Testament are the repentance 
and faith, by which the spiritual patient resorts 
to the great Physician, so beautifully illustrated, 
as in the writings of St. Luke. The repentance 
of the prodigal son; the repentance of the peni- 
tent thief; the repentance of the lowly publican 
with his simple, fervent ejaculation, " God be 
merciful to me a sinner; " — for the record of all 
these we are indebted to St. Luke; they all form 
an integral part of " the doctrine delivered by 
him ; " and they one and all furnish instances of 
grace abounding to the chief of sinners. 

That the heart should thus open towards the 
good Physician in repentance and faith is the one 
secret of spiritual health, into which Luke the 
Physician was himself indoctrinated, and into 
which he would indoctrinate the Church. All 
the diseases of our souls, however inveterate, 



ST. SIMON AND ST. JUDE, APOSTLES. 447 

ma}^ be healed in this method. We speak of 
these diseases as various; and various they are in 
theii' forms; but they have all one root in the cor- 
ruption of our nature; sins are many, but sin is 
one. And the remedy for all of them is one and 
the same. As all trace back to the fall of Adam, 
and to the depravation and disorganization of hu- 
man nature in that fall, so does the remedy trace 
back in all cases to the righteousness of the second 
Adam, both in His life and His death, and to the 
reconstitution of humanity in Him, as its new 
Covenant Head. And therefore it is that we con- 
clude this prayer for the application of the rem- 
edies of sin to ourselves, by a rehearsal of this 
righteousness before the throne of grace ; " through 
the merits of thy Son, Jesus Christ our Lord." 



$t. $imott ant( $t, Sutie, Apostles* 

Ahnlglity God, who hast huilt iliy Church upon the 
foundaiion of the Apostles and Prophets, Jesus Christ 

himself being the head corner stone; Grant us so to he 
joined together in unity of spirit by their doctrine, 

that ice may be made an holy temple, acceptable unto 

thee; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. (a. i>. 

1549.) 

THIS Collect is built, not upon its own Epis- 
tle, like most of those made new at the 
Beformation, but upon a passage in St. Paul's 
Epistle to the Ephesians, which it recites. But 



448 6*7^. SIMON AND ST. JUDE, APOSTLES. 

the passage in the Ephesians is itself built upon, 
and borrows the language of, an Old Testament 
passage, to which we must refer ba-ck, if w^e de- 
sire to understand it thoroughly. It will be 
deeply interesting to observe how one of the 
chiefest Ajjostles, St. Paul, handles, and, under 
the briUiant light of his own inspiration, devel- 
opes, the meaning of words uttered by one of the 
chiefest of the Prophets, Isaiah. 

Since the Apostles almost alwa^'S quote the Old 
Testament, not from the Hebrew original, but in 
the Grreek version of it called the Septuagint, and 
St. Peter, in introducing this ver}^ passage, recites 
it as it is given in the Septuagint, we will take 
that version of it, as probably supjolying the ex- 
act words Avhich the Apostle had in his mind; 
" Therefore thus saith the Lord God, Behold I 
cast into the foundations of Zion a stone of great 
price, an elect and precious corner stone; and he 
that believeth shall not be ashamed." It will be 
observed that the foundations of Sion are spoken 
of as having existed previously to the throwing 
down of the corner stone among them ; a circum- 
stance w^hich goes far to account for St. Paul's 
arrangement of the imagery, according to which 
the foundation is spoken of as being that of the 
Apostles and Prophets, while Christ is called 
'"the chief corner stone," and which also serves 
to throw light upon the disputed question, who 
are the prophets intended. 

It was entirely in keeping with the scope of St. 
Paul's argument to mention the Prophets as well 



ST. SIMON AND ST. JUDE, APOSTLES. 449 

as the Apostles. For he is engaged in setting 
forth the unity between Jew and Gentile which 
* had been brought about by Christ. Now, the 
Apostles Avere, by Christ's commission, preacliers 
to the Gentiles: " Go ye and make disciples of all 
the nations, by baptizing them." But the Propli- 
ets had been, as indeed our Lord Himself was, 
ministers of the circumcision, jweachers to the Jews 
exclusively. Therefore, in reckoning up those 
who had laid the foundations of the city in 
which Jew and Gentile were fellow-citizens, he 
could not possibly pass over the Prophets of the 
former dispensation: "Ye are built ujDon the 
foundation of the apostles and jji'ojyhefs.'" But 
why does he mention the Prophets after the 
Apostles, seeing that historically they preceded 
them? Because the fulness of the revelation of 
Christ was reserved for the Apostles, and because 
their preaching furnished the clue to that of the 
Prophets; it was only under the light shed forth 
at Pentecost, and caused to shine throughout the 
world by the ministry of the Apostles, that the 
obscurer intimations of the Prophets could be 
rightly interpreted and understood. Moreover, 
the spiritual building, though planned and laid 
out by the Prophets, did not actually begin to 
rise till the Apostles, under the influences of Pen- 
tecost, put their hand to the work. There was 
indeed a Church before the day of Pentecost, a 
Church in the family of Abraham, the cementing 
bond of which was natural kinship or blood; but 
it was not vet a " holv Catholic Church." Of this 



450 ST. SIMON AND ST. JUDE, APOSTLES. 

Catholic Church, which embraces "a great multi- 
tude of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and 
tongues," the Apostles were the earliest builders. 
The Prophets, though a large debt of gratitude 
and veneration was due to them, had but pre- 
pared the soil and laid out the ground for the 
Apostles. — ^But not only were the Apostles the 
earliest hidlderH of the Catholic Church, they ivere 
also its earliest members. They were themselves, 
in a certain sense, foundations; not that the build- 
ing reposes on them ; but that thej^, with the faith- 
ful of the earher disiDensation, were the first stones 
laid. A foundation-stone is the earliest stone; if 
you dismantle a building stone by stone, so as 
not to leave one stone upon another, you will at 
last come to the foundation-stone; so, if you were 
to sweep away generation after generation of 
God's faithful people, you would at length arrive 
at the Apostles, who were the earliest believers, 
and after them at the Jewish Prophets, whose 
testimony to the Saviour their contemporaries 
received and handed on. And therefore it is that, 
in the vision of the new Jerusalem in the Book 
of the Revelation, the foundations of the city are 
exhibited as having the names of the twelve 
Apostles of the Lamb sculptured in them. The 
Apostles, as they were the first preachers of 
Christ, so they were also the first believers in 
Him. 

" Jesus Christ Himself being the head corner 
stone." The point of the Apostle's argument be- 
ing, as we have said, the unity of Jew and Gen- 



ST. SIMON AND ST. JUDE, APOSTLES. 451 

tile ill Christ, it was directly to this point to brin«^ 
out the Prophet's image of Christ as the corner 
stone, because it is in the corner stone that the 
converging lines of a building meet. It is this 
meeting of the lines, in the stone which stands at 
the angle, which is the iippermost idea in his. 
mind. For it is in these terms that he describes 
the spiritual corner stone, " in whom all the build- 
iDg, fitly framed together, groweth unto an hol}^ 
temple in the Lord; in whom ye also are builded 
together" together with your Jewish fellow-Chris- 
tians — "for an habitation of God through the 
Spirit." Now the differencs between Jew and 
Gentile is a typical difference. No other distinc- 
tion between man and man was ever so deep- 
rooted. The barrier which parted them was of 
God's own erection; it was " the law of command- 
ments contained in ordinances;" — ^the moral law, 
parting off the Jew from the moral abominations, 
the "revellings, banquetings, and abominable 
idolatries " which prevailed among the heathen, 
— the ceremonial law, which pervaded every dis- 
trict and department of social and political life, and 
the tendency of which was to isolate the Jew from 
all other peoples on the face of the earth. And 
as to the antipathy and contempt, which the par- 
ties on either side the barrier entertained towards 
each other, we find them coming out in Pilate's 
indignant question, "Am I a Jew?" in Gallio's 
refusal to hear a suit which turned upon Jewish 
questions, "If it be a question of words and 
names, and of your law, look ye to it; for I will 



452 ST. SIMON AND ST. JUBE, APOSTLES. 

be no judge of such matters." It was quite 
necessary to unwrap and display this train of 
thought, which hes hid under the first clause of 
the Collect, in order to show how it bears on the 
'petition for unity, and to point out the coherence 
of the different parts of the prayer. 

" Grant us so to be joined together in unity 
of spirit by their doctrine." This expression is 
drawn from another chapter of the Epistle to 
the Ephesians — the fourth, where it occurs, not in 
the course of a prayer for, but of an exhortation 
to, unity: ''Endeavoring to keep the unity of the 
Spirit in the bond of peace." It is to be regretted 
that neither here, nor in the "Prayer for all Con- 
ditions of Men," where the same passage is cited, 
have those who drew up the prayer inserted the 
definite articles. In our Authorized Version, as 
also in Cranmer's own version, which was pub- 
lished in 1539, ten years before the First Praj^er 
Book of Edward YL, the words are translated 
quite rightly, and with strict fidelity to the 
Greek: "Be diligent to keep the unity of the 
Spirit." The definite article before "Spirit," 
shows what S^oirit the Apostle is speaking of, — • 
that it is the Holy Spirit, or third Person of the 
Blessed Trinity. Whereas " unity of spirit " ra- 
ther points to the spirit of man than to that of 
God. The expression leads us to reflect that 
there may be unity of spirit between Christians, 
where there is no unity of form. Uniformity is 
not unitj^ No systems of worship, no forms of 
teaching, can be more different than those which 



ST. SIMON AND ST. JUDE, APOSTLES. 453 

characterize the Law and the Gospel. And yet 
we are taught to see a deep-seated unity of sr)irit 
between the people of God under these two dis- 
pensations, which exhibit features so widely dif- 
ferent. The j^ious Jew looked forward to Christ, 
saw Him darkly in the glass of type and prophecy. 
The pious Christian looks backwards to the same 
Saviour, and sees Him with comparative clear- 
ness in the word, preached with " great plainness 
of speech," and in the Sacraments. There is in- 
deed but one flock of Christ; but it is folded in , 
many folds. There is but one Church Catholic; 
but it has many branches. And as the sap, ris- 
ing from one root, gi^ es one life to every branch 
of a tree, so the Holy Spirit, shed forth from the 
Rock of our salvation, waters every corner of 
God's vineyard, and knits together the several 
members of Christ's body " in unity of spirit." 
"By their doctrine." God, "the author of 
peace and lover of concord," works b}^ instru- 
mentality — by " the doctrine " of the Apostles and 
Prophets. The Prayer Book is as harmonious 
and consistent in its teaching as the Bible is. 
When we pray for unity in the daily service, it is 
through the acknowledgment of the truth on the 
part of all the Churcli's various members that we 
'hope to receive it; the way of truth is one and 
the same way for all; and it is through being 
led into it, and no otherwise, that we hope to 
reach the goal of unit3\ This point cannot be too 
earnestly pressed in these days, when we hear 
such lamentations over the Church's want of 



454 ST. SIMON AND ST. JUDE, APOSTLES. 

iinity, and people seem disposed to strive and 
pray that the various jarring* sections of Chris- 
tendom may be brought together again, without 
always discerning that that most blessed end can 
only be brought about by a common assent to 
Scriptural truth on the part of each section, and 
that every agreement, save that of "agreement 
in the truth," would be hollow and false. 

The clause of the Collect on which we are now 
engaged seems to want supplementing by the 
, observation that, if we desire our prayers for 
unity to be answered, we must add to them our 
strenuous endeavors after it. ^'Endeavoring to 
keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of 
peace;" wdiere the word translated '"endeavor- 
ing " is, as Archbishop Laud remarked, a strong 
word, " being solicitous (careful) to preserve the 
unity of the spirit," busying ourselves about it, 
showing a practical interest in it. 

'• Grant us so to be joined together in unity of 
spirit, . . . that we may be made an holy tem- 
ple." How, then, we may be inclined to ask, can 
the Church in its present state, rent as it is by 
schisms into so many different communities, sev- 
eral of which excommunicate the rest, be an ac- 
ceptable temple to God, meet for His indwelling ? 
The answer is, that in the ideal and intention of the* 
Church's Founder, who before leaving His disci- 
ples, prayed for them thus: "That they all may 
be one ; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, 
that they also may be one in us," the Church 
is one and indivisible, how eYer rent by schisms 



ST. SIMON AND ST. JUDE, APOSTLES. 455 

through the sin of man. GocVs ideal is not really 
frustrated, nor His design defeated, by the unhappy 
divisions which we see around us. As St. Paul says 
of God's ancient people, " Thej^ are not all Israel, 
who are of Israel: neither, because the}' are the 
seed of Abraham, are they all children;" so may 
we say of His people at the present time, " All 
are not Christians, who are externally and by 
profession so." There are bad fish as well as 
good in the draw-net of the Church, tares as well 
as wheat in her harvest field; and since, where 
there is nothing amiss in creed or conduct, in- 
sincere Christians cannot possibly be detected by 
the eye of man, we are forbidden to attemj^t to 
separate the tares from the wheat until the time 
arrives for the great harvest. But this is certain, 
that there can never be any real spiritual cohe- 
rence between a sincere and a mere nominal 
Christian, although they may be both embraced 
in the same communion; and that, on the other 
hand, so far as any two Christians are sincere in 
their profession of Christianity, and seek the 
same Father through the same Mediator, and 
under the influence of the same Spirit; so far as 
the}^ are growing in grace and in the knowledge 
of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ; so far they 
are really and truly (albeit invisibl}- and uncon- 
sciously) approximating to unity with one an- 
other. The radii of a circle cannot draw near to 
the centre without drawing near to one another, 
and souls cannot aj^proach the same Lord with- 
out finding in Him a centre of unity, which binds 



456 ALL SAINTS' DAY. 

them, not to Him only, but to one another. And 
thus, as regards each and all of them, the " habi- 
tation of Grod through the Spirit " draws nearer 
and nearer to completion, and the building, built 
upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, 
and having Jesus Christ for its head corner stone, 
"groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord." 



ail $amts' ©ag* 

Ahniglity God, 'who has knit together thine elect in one 
communion and fellowship, in the mystical body of 
thy Son Christ our Lord; Grant us grace so to follow 
thy blessed Saints in all virtuous and, godly living, 
that we m,ay come to those unspeakable joys which 
tliou hast prepared for those who unfeignedly love 
thee; tlirough Jesus Christ our Juord. Amen. (a. d. 
1549.) 

^"T^HIS Collect was drawn up in 1549, and 
-I. has received since that time only verbal 
alterations. 

It is in every way appropriate that the series 
of holy days, on which we commemorate par- 
ticular saints, should be closed, and as it were 
crowned, by one comprehensive commemoration 
of all God's " servants departed this life in His 
faith and fear, whose names are written in the 
book of life," however completely they may have 
dropped out of the memory of man. In vindi- 
cating the costly funereal honors which were paid 
Him by anticipation in the house of Simon the 



ALL SAINTS' DAY. 457 

leper, our Lord said that, wheresoever His gos- 
pel should be preached in the whole world, the 
pious act of the woman who paid them should 
" be told for a memorial of her." But how many 
pious acts, done in a precisely similar spirit, 
have escaped record altogether, although noth- 
ing can obliterate them from the book of God's 
remembrance ! As the Chi'istian poet sings, with 
BO true and deep a pathos: — 

"Nor deem who to that bliss uspire, 
Must win their way through blood and fire. 
The \Yrithings of a wounded heart 
Are fiercer that a foeman's dart. 
Oft in life's stillest shade reclining; 
In desolation unrepining, 
Without an hope on earth to find 
A mirror in an answering mind, 
Meek souls there are, who little dream 
Their daily strife an angel's theme, 
Or that the rod they take so calm 
Shall prove in heaven a martyr's palm."' 

It is T\itli the view of preserving some memo- 
rial of these "meek sovds," who are now with 
Christ in paradise, that the Church has insti- 
tuted and annually observes the festival of All 
Saints. 

" Almighty God, who hast knit together thine 
elect." The Collect having been originally writ- 
ten in English, we are at liberty to remark upon 
the word, "knit together," as expressive of a very 
close and intimate union. The word belongs to 

^ Keble's Christian Year, "Wednesday before Easter. 



458 ALL SALNTS' DAY. 

the sempstress's art, and expresses the union of 
threads or strands by interlacing. It is also ap- 
plied to the union which is given to the different 
members of the human frame by the interlacing 
of the sinews and muscles — a union which, in the 
barbarous punishments of other days, it was often 
found impossible to sever by pulling and strain- 
ing, however great the force apphed, and which 
made it necessary to apply the knife. And to 
this union of the bodily members the word 
"knit" is applied in our Authorized Version 
of the Epistle to the Colossians: — "For I would 
that ye knew what great conflict I have for you, 
and for them at Laodicea, and for as many as 
have not seen my face in the flesh; that their 
hearts might be comforted, being knit together 
in love." 

" Thine elect." The elect (to adoj)t the lan- 
guage of our Seventeenth Article) are those whom 
God "hath chosen in Christ out of mankind," 
and "hath constantly decreed by His counsel 
secret to us, to deliver from curse and damna- 
tion, and to bring them by Christ to everlasting 
salvation, as vessels made to honor." All these 
— such is the assertion before us — God has knit 
together in closest spmtual intercourse, however 
separated from one another by time, by space, 
or by separateness of condition. To vindicate 
the unity of the Old Testament saints with our- 
selves, it is only necessary to observe that they, 
through the dark intimations of proj)hecy and 
type, looked for and hoped in the same Savioui*, 



ALL SAINTS' DAY. 459 

who is also our object of faith. Even death it- 
self is no solvent of the strong bond, which knits 
together God's elect; it cannot be. For, to quote 
the words of Bishop Pearson, " If I have com- 
munion with a saint of God, as such, while he 
liveth here, I must still have communion with 
him when he is departed hence; because the 
foundation of that communion cannot be re- 
moved by death Death, which is nothing- 
else but the sejDaration of the soul from the bod}', 
maketh no sej)aration in the mystical union " [be- 
tween Christ and His Church] ; " and consequently 
there must continue the same communion, be- 
cause there remaineth the same foundation." 
And therefore, in enumerating the various per- 
sons with whom the saints to whom he is writing 
had communion, the Apostle does not omit the 
servants of God dej^arted out of this life: "Ye 
are come," says he, " to the spirits of just men made 
l^erfed.''' 

Now, our communion and fellowship with de- 
parted saints may be regarded in two aspects. 
It may be viewed as a fact, quite independently 
of our consciousness of it. Or it may be viewed 
as practically recognized by ourselves. First; let 
us think of it as a fact. Considered only thus, 
it may yield us strong consolation, when our 
hearts are feeling painfully the void in our cii'- 
cle made by the removal of some loved and lost 
one, of whom, however, we have good hope that 
he is faUen asleep in Jesus. What we yearn for 
in such moments is to be once ag-ain near to oui' 



460 AIL SAINTS' DAY. 

departed friend. Death seems like a cruel yawn- 
ing gulf, which has broken off all our relations 
to him. He seems to have no longer any sym- 
pathy with us, because we receive no indications 
of his sympath}^ But how do matters really 
stand in the truth of fact? A saint departed 
is nearer to Christ than a saint still in the flesh 
can be. According to St. Paul, " to depart " is 
"to be with Christ," consciously and sensibly in 
His presence. And therefore, when we seek the 
same Saviour, as it is ojDen to us at all times to 
do, we thereby draw near to them, who are drink- 
ing in happiness and peace from the shining in 
upon them of the light of His countenance. Our 
dull and gross senses give us no indication what- 
ever of the nearness of our friends. But none 
the less does it exist; none the less is it a great 
reality. For two radii cannot approach the cen- 
tre of a circle without approaching one another. 
" Grant us grace so to follow thy blessed 
Saints in all virtuous and godly living," or, as 
the same idea is more briefly expressed in the 
Prayer for the Church Militant, " beseeching 
thee to give us grace so to follow their good ex- 
amples." The carefulness and accuracy of the 
wording of both prayers is to be observed. We 
are to follow the saints "in all virtuous and godly 
living," to "follow their examples" only in so far 
as they are "good." — The words "virtuous and 
godl}'- living " yield rather different ideas. A vir- 
tue is an excellence of moral character, such as 
temperance, courage, liberality; the word does 



ALL SAINTS' DAY. 461 

not necessarily imph' any regard to God. It is 
a word more in favor with natural than with re- 
vealed rehgion, more in its own element in trea- 
tises of heathen moral philosophy than in the 
ethics of the Gospel. Yet it is adojoted both by 
St. Peter and St. Paul ; by the first, where he bids 
us to " add to " our " faith vii'tue," or moral ex- 
cellence, by the second, where he exhorts his Phi- 
lippian converts, "if there be any virtue' (moral 
excellence), " and if there be any praise, think of 
these things." Where does Holy Scripture bid 
us follow the good example of the saints, and 
thus warrant our prayers for grace to imitate 
them ? In several places; but in none more 
briefly and pregnantly than this: "Be je fol- 
lowers of me, even as I also am of Christ." This 
verse says in the fewest possible words all that 
can be said upon the subject; and, while it di- 
rectlj^ prescribes imitation of the Apostle, guards 
the precept from all possibility of misapprehen- 
sion. Even St. Paul himself we are to imitate 
only so far as he imitated his Divine Master. 
There is philosophy in the imitation of the saints, 
or rather of Christ in the saints, which we should 
not omit to observe. Our Lord Himself exhib- 
ited all graces, and all in the nicest adjustment 
and equipoise. His human character is for this 
reason perfectly well balanced, so that it cannot 
be said that any one particular trait stands out 
above the rest. It resembles the sunlight, which 
embraces all the prismatic colors in itself, and 
yet, because these colors are so beautifully and 



462 ALL SAINTS' DAY. 

proportionately compounded, is itself white and 
colorless. Whereas eacli of the saints is more or 
less one-sided in his character; he exhibits but 
one single ray of the manifold and composite ex- 
cellence of Christ. And the proposing to our- 
selves this single ray as our model, the concen- 
tration of our attention uj^on a part instead of the 
whole, upon the remarkable faith of one saint, 
upon the patience of another, upon the contem- 
plativeness of a third, upon the unwearying ac- 
tivity of a fourth, brings the example of Christ as 
it were piecemeal within our scope, and renders 
it more easily imitable than it would be if it 
stood alone. And yet, be it observed that it is 
not so much the saint, as Christ in the saint, whom 
we are to follow; the excellence was in Him be- 
fore it was in His disciple, and is only a single 
ray from the fountain of light, intercepted and 
exhibited in a merely human and therefore a fal- 
lible medium. 

" That we may come to those unspeakable joys, 
which thou hast prepared for those who unfeign- 
edilj love thee." The passage referred to is St. 
Paul's paraphrastic translation of a verse in the 
sixty-fourth Chapter of Isaiah: "As it is written, 
Ej^e hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have 
entered into the heart of man, the things which 
God hath prepared for them that love Him." 
It is not that no notion at all can be formed of 
them by any one. The Apostle expressly says, 
in the context of the passage just quoted, that, 
although these joys do not enter into the experi- 



ALL SAINTS' DAY. 463 

ence of the natural man, yet that to the spiritual 
man they are revealed; for the passage proceeds 
thus: "But God hath revealed them unto" us by 
His Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, 
the deej) things of God." Thus, to God's true 
jDeople an inward revelation is made of these J03-S 
which must give some notion of them. Even 
what we can at present receive of this joy is 
so overwhelming and absorbing, that language 
would break down beneath the burden of it, 
speech is felt to be too frail a vehicle to convey 
it. For which reason St. Peter calls it " unspeak- 
able ;" " in whom, though now ye see Him not, 
yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unsjxakable and 
full of glory." How much more unspeakable, 
then, in respect of their greater nearness to 
Christ, and their more conscious and intimate 
communion with Him, must be the joy which 
the blessed dead experience in paradise ! 

With this beautiful aspiration of heart towards 
the society of the blessed dead, whose company 
and intercourse is itself one of the joys j^repared 
by God for those who unfeignedly love Him — 
with this, " O that I had wings like a dove ! for 
then would I fly away, and be at rest " — this noble 
series of Collets of the Day comes to an end. 
It opened mtn a petition that we might "cast 
away the works of darkness, and put uj^on us 
the armor of light," with which equipment alone 
we can hope to fight successfully the good fight 
of faith. Since that time the Church has led us 
along with prayers for mercy, grace, and strength, 



464 THE CONSTANT COLLECT OF 

suited to the various stages of our caDipaign, until 
at the end of the Christian Year, she puts into 
our mouths this one strong and fervent aspiration, 
for, and anticipation of, the rest that remaineth 
for the people of God, as if she were minded that 
we too should be able to say with the Apostle: 
"I have a desire to depart, and to be with Christ: 
which is far better;" "Henceforth there is laid 
up for me a crown of righteousness, which the 
Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that 
day: and not to me only, but unto all them also 
that love His appearing." 



Wc^z Constant Collect of tfje Com= 
munion Ser&tce. 

Ahniglity God, unto wliom all hearts are open, all de- 
sires known, and from wliom no secrets are hid; 
Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts hy the inspiration 
of thy Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly love thee, 
anda-orthity magnify thy holy Name; through Christ 
our Lord. Amen. 

Deus, cui omne cor patet, el omnis voluntas loquitur, et 
quern nullum latet secretum; purifica per infusionem 
Sancti Spiritus cogitationes cordis nostri; id te per- 
fected ilig ere, etdignelaudaremereamur. Per Chris- 
tum Dumiinim nostruTn. Amen. 

THE Collects of the Communion Ofi&ce may 
be divided into two classes — constant and 
variable. Under the first head will fall the open- 
ing Collect, which is used under all circumstances. 
Under the head of variable Collects will fall, first. 



THE COMMUNION SERVICE. 465 

those which varj" with the ecclesiastical season, 
with the week or the day; and, secondly, those 
appended to the end of the Communion Service, 
which are only appointed to be said when there 
is no actual celebration, and which vary at the 
" discretion of the Minister." 

The Constant Collect is perhaps the noblest of 
all this noble series of prayers. It is charaqjter- 
istically English, being found in the Missal of 
Sarum in two different connections, and also at 
the end of the Litany in " the Use of York/' but 
having no j)lace, as most of our other ancient 
Collects have, in the Liturgy of the Church of 
Rome. But it is of much earlier origin than the 
Missal of Sarum. A manuscript Sacramentary 
of the Anglo-Saxon Church, given by Leofric, 
Bishop of Exeter, to his cathedral church before 
the Norman Conquest, contains it. And it is 
found also in the Sacramentary of Alcuin, the 
contemporary and friend of Charlemagne, about 
the end of the eighth century. A Mass of the 
Holy Ghost, where we meet with it for the second 
time in the Missal of Sarum, is attributed to St. 
Gregor}", and this Collect, therefore, may trace 
back to his times. Thus it comes to us recom- 
mended by its antiquit}', as well as by its special 
connection with the Church of England. 

As it stood in the Missal of Sarum, it was to 
be said secretly by the priest as he was putting 
on the vestments of the Mass, and, together with 
the hymn, "Veni Creator," and the versicle, 
" Send forth thy Spirit, and renew the face of the 



4fi6 THE CONSTANT COLLECT OF 

earth," formed part of his private preparation for 
the Holy Communion. 

"Almighty God, unto whom all hearts are 
open." The Latin has "unto whom every heart 
is open. " " Every " individualizes the truth, 
which " all " generalizes. It is comfortable to 
be told that " Christ Jesus gave Himself a ran- 
son\ for all;'' but "a/Z" embraces the countless 
myriads of the human race, among whom we 
ourselves might be overlooked or not thought 
of; and therefore it is doubly comforting to be 
assured that He "tasted death for eviery man." 
— Observe that in this clause the image is drawn 
from the eye. "Unto whom every heart is open." 
The heart is compared to a cabinet, closed indeed 
to men, but lying open continually, with all its 
contents, under the survey of God. He is a 
" discerner of .the thoughts and intents of the 
heart. Neither is there any creature that is not 
manifest in His sight: but all things are naked 
and opened iinio the eyes of Him with whom we 
have to do." 

"All desires known." This is too free a ren- 
dering, and the effect of it is to substitute a 
vague general idea for one precise and definite. 
The literal rendering is, " to whom every act of 
the will speaks," or, " for whom every act of the 
will has a voice." The former clause represent- 
ing God as piercing with penetrating eye into the 
screened cabinet of the heart. This represents 
Him as hearing every utterance of human desire 
and human will — 



THE COMMUNION SERVICE. -467 

"Thou knowest what 'tis my lips would vent, 
My yet unutter'd words' intent." 

Nay, we are told that the appetite of hunger in 
an irrational creature has a voice which reaches 
God's ear: "He feedeth the young ravens that 
call uj)on Him;" "The young lions roar after 
their prey, and seek their meat from God." 
How searching and solemn is this assurance 
that every desire and act of the will has a voice 
in the ears of God. Our very longings, much 
more our resolves, are prayers without our ex- 
pressing them. How strongly does this consid- 
eration impress us with the necessity of watchful- 
ness, over, and control of, the inner man — " the 
thoughts and intents of the heart." 

" And from whom no secrets are hid." God 
has an all -seeing eye, says the first clause. 
God has an all -hearing ear, says the sec- 
ond. God has a j^erfect knowledge of the se- 
crets of all characters, says the third. He could 
at any moment describe ^ach one of us to our- 
selves with such perfect accuracy that we should 
start, and say with Xathanael, "Whence know- 
est thou me?" How esj)ecially approj)riate is it 
that this prayer, leading us as it does into the 
recesses of our own hearts, and forcing upon us 
the reflection whether there may not lurk there 
some guilty secret, some hidden cherished sin, — 
should stand in the forefront of the Communion 
Office. For is it not the inspired rule of jorepa- 
ration for this Office, "Let a man examine himself, 
and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of that 



468- THE CONSTANT COLLECT OF 

cup " ? And, accordingly, here we are reminded 
tliat this examination must be spiritual; that it 
must reach far beyond the actions into the inner 
man; that it must be a voluntary exposure of the 
secrets of the conscience to His all-seeing eye, 
from whom none of those secrets are hid, wheth- 
er we expose them or not. 

But even when an examination of the inner 
man does not reveal to us any cherished sin, 
there may be evil lurking in the heart of which 
we are unconscious. All, therefore, have need 
to pray — some in the consciousness of interior 
mischief, and some in the possibility of its lurk- 
ing there unconsciously: "Cleanse the thoughts 
of our hearts by the inspiration of thy Holy 
Spirit." "Infusion" it is in the Latin; but sure- 
ly " inspiration," which our Reformers have sub- 
stituted, is a higher word, and yields a nobler 
idea. " Infusion " means ^90i(ri??p' into or upon; and 
the cognate verb is to be found in the Collect for 
the Annunciation: "We beseech thee, O Lord, 
pour thy grace into our souls." " Insj)iration " ' 

J "Inspiration " may be used cither for the grace of tho 
Holy Spirit, or for that special miraculous gift by which 
He qualified the prophets and apostles, and the Scriptural 
writers generally, to give the Church infallible insiruction 
in Divine truth. Thus, there is a faith which is at the 
foundation of the spiritual life in all of us (Heb. xi. 1, 6), 
and without which there is no spiritual life; and there is a 
"fides miraculosa," a persuasion on the mind of a cer- 
tain Christian, that he is able on a certain emergency to 
work a miracle, for which, as the gift of miracles has been 
withdrawn, there is now no longer any exercise. — (See I 
Cor. xii. 9). 



THE COMMUMlON SERVICE. 469 

means hrmtlung into or upon. When our Lord 
communicated the Holy Sph'it to His A2:>ostles 
after His resurrection, " He breathed on them, 
and saith unto them. Receive ye the Holy Ghost." 
Wind, fire, and water are the three great purify- 
ing agencies in nature, for which reason they 
are all made emblems of the Holy Spirit, who is 
the great purifying agency in grace. And let 
us learn from this j^etition that we are not pure, 
unless our thoughts are pure. Innocence as to 
deeds, innocence even as to words, does not con- 
stitute that jDurity which the heart-searching-God 
requires, and requires specially in those who 
draw near to Him in that Ordinance, in which 
we make the nearest approach which can be 
made to Him on earth. The word "inspira- 
tion " has taught us an important lesson if it im- 
presses us with our entire dependence upon God 
in the matter of our sanctification and salvation, 
and makes us feel that sanctification and salva- 
tion to be of mere grace, and not procured by 
our own endeavors, however strenuous. 

It will be observed that in the original Latin 
of the Collect, the words are "Cleanse the thoughts 
of our heart" which last word the translator has 
turned into the plural. Perhaps he has done 
well in altering' the number; but the sin^'ular 
number in this connection is not an inaccuracy, 
nor is it wanting in Scriptural warrant. The 
Chiu'ch is one in the sight of God; "that they 
may be one, as we are;" "the multitude of them 
that believed were of one heart and of one soul." 



470 THE CONSTANT COLLECT OF 



When, therefore, the collective Church approaches 
God, she may justly say " Cleanse the thoughts of 
our heart, which, indeed, is but one heart, for we 
' are all one in Christ Jesus.' " And when an apos- 
tle gives his valedictory blessing to a collective 
Church, he may justly say, " Brethren, the grace 
of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit" 

" That we may perfectly love thee." What is 
the perfect love of God? The loving Him "with 
all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all 
thy mind, and with all thy strength " — the loving 
Him with the love of gratitude; with the love 
of instinct and natural attraction, as drawn 
towards Him by the conviction that He is our 
chief good; and with the love of the judgment 
and reason, as being in all His attributes su- 
premely worthy of love. But observe the close 
connection of this aspiration with the petition, 
" Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts . . . that 
we may perfectly love thee." Before the perfect 
love of God can be formed in any heart it must 
be cleansed, not only from the love of sin, but 
from all idolatrous love of the creatures. Love 
the creatures indeed we may (nay, we are com- 
manded to love our neighbor as ourselves), but 
we must love them in and for God, and in sub- 
ordination to Him; we must regard them as bor- 
rowing all that they have of beauty, and excel- 
lence, and worth from Him, just as all the fair 
colors of Nature are really resident, not in Nature, 
but in the light, — are borrowed from the sun. 

"And worthily magnify thy holy Name ; " — in 



THE COMMUNION SERVICE. 471 

the original, which is not quite so full, "worthil;y 
praise thee." Observe that praise follows in the 
train of love; the magnifying of God's Name is 
the outcome, the natural and necessar}' expres- 
sion, of love for Him. Praise is the voice of 
love, as prayer is the voice of faith. And let 
us remember that" the Holy Communion, for 
which this Collect forms a preparation, is a 
sacrifice of praise. For do we not say, after 
celebrating it, "We thy humble servants ear- 
nestly desire thy fatherly goodness mercifully to 
accept this our sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving "? 



Eijt JTirst Collect at tfje enti of tlje 
Communion Serbtce* 

Assist us merci/uUi/, Lord, in these our supplications 
and prayers, and dispose the way of thy servants 
towards the attainment of everlasting salvation; that, 
among all the changes and chances of this mortcu 
life, they may ever he defended by thy most gracious 
and ready help; through Jesus Christ our Lord. 
Amen. 

Adesto, Domine, supplicationibus nosiris, et viam fa- 
mulorum tuorum,in salutis iuce prosper itate dispone; 
ut inter omnes vioi et vitce hujus varietates, tuo sem- 
per protegantur auxilio. Per Dcminum. (Gel. 
Sac, Miss. Sab.) 

THERE are some prayers of the Church, the 
beauty of which (and even their full mean- 
ing) cannot be appreciated without looking at 
the original connection in which they stand. 



472 FIRST COLLECT AT THE END 

So it is with the beautiful Collect before us. 
It first made its appearance in the Sacramentary 
of Gelasius, where it occurs in a Mass for those 
who are going a journe}^ Hence the allusions 
to " the way," or road, and to the changes of 
scene, w^hich are incidental to the turnings or 
windings of the road. The following is a balder 
and somewhat less free and rhythmical transla- 
tion than our Reformers have presented us with: 
"Assist us, O Lord, in our supplications; and fa- 
vorably dispose the way of thy servants towards 
the attainment of thy salvation, that, among all 
the changes of the way and of this life" [the 
word for way (or road) in Latin is via; the word 
for life is vita: and accordingly we here have one 
of those alliterations and pla^^s upon words, which 
the old Collect writers rather affected, and which 
our Reformers by no means despised, " ut inter 
omnes vicB et vito3 hujus varietates;" for, while 
the English language did not allow them to re- 
produce the resemblance of sound between via 
and vita, they have given us an alliteration of 
their own, by introducing the word chances, 
which has no place in the original (" changes 
and chances")], "they may ever be protected 
by thy help, through the Lord." 

But as yet we are only at the beginning of 
the history of this pra^^er. It found its way from 
the Sacramentary of Gelasius into the Missal of 
Sarum, whence our Reformers borrowed it. And 
there it occurs, not merely as a praj^er for ordi- 
nary travellers, but in the very interesting "Order 



OF THE COMMUNION SERVICE. 473 

of service for Pilgrims" — travellers, that is, to 
certain lioly places consecrated by the martyr- 
dom and the monuments of the saints, at which 
places the j^ilgrims, when they arrived, were to 
perform certain devotions. This Service begins 
with the recitation of certain psalms and jDraj^ers 
over the pilgrims as they lie prostrate before the 
altar, the first of the prayers being this very Col- 
lect. Then they rise, and their scrips and staves 
are blessed by the officiating priest, and the scrips 
hung round their necks, and the staves placed 
in their hands with appropriate exhortations. 
Then the ordinary Mass for travellers is said, 
at which the pilgrims receive the Communion, 
and in which the prayer before us serves as the 
Collect; the verse of Genesis, in which Abraham 
assures his servant, who was going into Mesopo- 
tamia, that the Lord would send his angel before 
him, as the Epistle ; and our Lord's commission to 
the Twelve, according to St. Matthew, as the Gos- 
pel. Human life is a journey; there is no more 
common image, no more commonly employed 
phrase, than that of "the journe}'' of life." And 
the life of the true Christian is a sacred journey or 
pilgrimage, a journey which has for its goal the hea- 
venly Canaan and the Jerusalem which is above. 
Following out this idea of a correspondence be- 
tween life and a pilgrimage, the mediaeval Church 
found a place for this Collect among the devotions 
appointed to be used at Prime, or the first hour. 
The Church recognized seven hours of Prayer, 
for each of which suitable Offices were provided, 



474 FIRST COLLECT AT THE END 

the observance of seven hours being probably 
founded on the words of the Psalmist: "Seven 
times a day do I praise thee because of thy right- 
eous judgments." The earliest of these hours was 
daj^break, and the office to be then recited was 
called Matins, or (more strictly) Matin-Lauds, 
or Morning Praises. The idea of the office was 
that, when the first flush of dawn crimsoned the 
East, and wakened the birds to sing their morn- 
ing carol, the Church should awake too, and offer 
to God a service of praise for the rising of the 
Sun of Righteousness upon the benighted na- 
tions with healing in His wings. Next after this 
burst of praise followed Prime, the first hour; 
and then, in succession, the third hour, the sixth 
hour, the ninth hour, Vespers (or Evening), and 
Compline (Completorium), so called from its fill- 
ing up and making complete the day's cycle of 
devotion. The office for Prime would naturally 
be an anticipation of the day's duties, responsi- 
bilities, and incidents — it was the devotion of the 
Christian at starting on a new stage of his pil- 
grimage. And, accordingly, this prayer, was ap- 
pointed to be said at Prime. Such is the early 
history of this Collect. In the place which they 
have assigned to it in our own Ritual, the Re- 
formers seem to have looked more to its opening- 
petition for assistance in our prayers, than to the 
pilgrim allusions in the body of it. And, accord- 
ingly, it stands in our Prayer Books as one of 
five Collects appointed to be said, when there is 
no Communion, immediately before the Blessing, 



OF THE COMMUNION SERVICE. 475 

the object of which seems to be to take off from 
the abruptness, with which otherwise the Service 
would come to an end. 

" The spirit of grace and of suj^plications " 
is not indigenous in man's heart — it must be 
" poured upon " him from on high. Our minds 
are apt at all times to wander in prayer, and at 
no time more so than when they are distracted 
by the prosj)ect of possible, or the experience 
of actual, trials. Therefore our Church instructs 
us to say, " Assist us mercifully, O Lord, in these 
our supplications and prayers." "Assist us,'' 
stand by us, support us. And this assistance in 
prayer is of two kinds, just as Moses had a 
twofold support when he held up his hands 
in intercession for Israel, the support of Aaron 
on one side, and of Hur on the other. There 
is an external assistance, in the intercession 
of Him who " ever liveth to make intercession 
for us." And there is the internal assistance of 
the Sj)irit, of whom we are assured that He spe- 
cially aids us in prayer, and supplies the defi- 
ciencies arising from wandering thoughts, dis- 
tracting cares, coldness of spirit, the tendency to 
become formal and mechanical. "Likewise the 
SjDirit also helpeth our infirmities, for we know 
not what we should pray for as we ought; but the 
Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groan- 
ings which cannot be uttered." 

" And dispose the way of thy servants towards 
the attainment of everlasting salvation." Here 
there comes into the praj^er the allusion to trav- 



476 FIRST COLLECT AT THE END 

ellers and pilgrims, for wliose use it was in tlie 
first instance intended. Tlie hundred and sev- 
enth Psalm sets forth very beautifully God's provi- 
dence over travellers, whereby He brings them 
in safety to their journey's end. Be it remem- 
bered that in former times travelling had none 
of those facilities or securities which attend it 
now; for any one setting out on a long and dis- 
tant journey it was a real uncertainty whether, 
" through perils of waters, and perils of robbers, 
perils in the wilderness, and perils in the sea," 
he would ever reach his destination. We must 
place ourselves in imagination in a state of things 
similar to that, in which a citizen of Korwich, 
wandering by night on Household Heath, then 
covered with a dense wood, so completely lost 
himself, and felt his danger to be so imminent 
that, when at length he was enabled by the 
sound of St. Peter Mancroft's bells to find his 
way into the city, he bequeathed, as a perpetual 
memorial of his gratitude, and out of charity to 
persons similarly circumstanced, a sum to be 
given annually to the sexton for soundiug the 
bell at four every morning and at eight every 
evening, "for the help and benefit of travellers.'' 
In such days right heartily Avould every travel- 
ler pray, "Dispose the way of thy servant, O 
Lord." — But our Collect was to be made to con- 
vey higher and more spiritual thoughts than any 
connected with a mere earthh'^ pilgrimage. The 
land to which the true people of God are jour- 
neying is the heavenly Canaan ; the " city of hab- 



OF THE COMMUNION SERVICE. 477 

itatiou" which they seek, and with whose free- 
dom they were in their Baj^tism presented, is the 
"Jerusalem which is above," the "cit}^ which 
hath foundations, whose builder and maker is 
God."' And, accordingly, the prayer is that God 
would so providentially order their way in the 
voyage of life, that they may ultimately arrive in 
safety at this goal of their race. " Disj^ose the 
way of thy servant," not towards that which is 
more lucrative, or more honorable, but "towards 
the attainment of everlasting salvation." 

"That among all the changes and chances of 
this mortal life." The word " chances " was, as we 
have seen, inserted b}' our Reformers. Chance 
is not a word which finds favor with the writers 
of ScrijDture, for good reasons. The heathen 
recognized the hand and control of God onlv in 
certain solemn events, not in all things great and 
small. Thus the diviners of the Philistines speak 
about a "chance that happened to us" as a cause 
of the calamities which had fallen on their coun- 
trymen, altogether distinct from the hand of the 
Lord, which they confessed must have " done us 
this great evil." 

In the passage before us the word " chances " 
is tantamount to "unexpected occurrences or in- 
cidents," things which, when they happen, frus- 
trate anticipations, and take us by surprise. The 
word " changes," which represents the varielates 
of the original Latin, contains a reference to the 
changes of scene in travelling, which a turn or 
winding in the road will suddenly bring into 



478 FIRST COLLECT AT THE END 

view; from austere and frowning crags on each 
side of "QS we come at once, it may be, on the 
prospect of some smiling verdant champaign 
countr}'", spread out for miles away beneath our 
feet. These resemble the entire change of as- 
sociations which a critical turn in our hves some- 
times brings with it. 

" They may ever be defended by thy most gra- 
cious and ready help." In this, as in the many 
similar petitions found in other Collects, it must 
be understood that the things deprecated not only 
seem to us to be, but really are, in the judgment 
of truth and in the judgment of God, noxious 
and mischievous, the key to aU such general ex- 
pressions being given in the CoUect for the Fif- 
teenth Sunday after Trinity, " Keep us ever by 
thy help from all things hurtful, and lead us to 
all things profitable to our salvation." To be 
" taken away from the evil to come," by a death 
Avhich may strike us as awfuUy sudden and even 
shocking, is not therefore "hurtful to a man's 
salvation." — "Gracious and ready " are epithets 
introduced by the translators; but they are tell- 
ing and weU-chosen epithets. God's help is al- 
ways graciously given,, never extorted from Him 
as a niggard; He always smiles as He gives. And 
it is " ready " too, given with a promptitude of 
which certain provisions of nature are made in 
the Bible the symbol. When Israel made that 
long pilgrimage in the wilderness, the model of 
the journey of life, God " kept him as the apple 
of His eye," and watched over him " as an eagle 



OF THE COMMUNION SERVICE. 479 

fluttereth over her young." And founding his 
petition upon this foregone Scripture, the Psalm- 
ist prays, "Keep me as the apple of the eye, hide 
me under the shadow of thy wings." To be 
i-hus kept, thus hidden, is indeed to "be de- 
fended by God's most gracious and ready help." 



2Dl}e Scronti Collect at tl}e entr of t{)e 
Communion Serfatce* 

Grant, we beseech thee, AlmigJiti/ God, that the icorch, 
which we have heard this dm/ with our outward ears, 
may through thy grace be so grafted inwardly in our 
hearts, that they may bring forth in us the fruit of 
good living, to the honor and jyraise of thy Name, 
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. (a. 0.1549.) 

THIS is a new Collect drawn up by our Re- 
formers. It made its earliest aj^pearance in 
King Edward's First Prayer Book in 1549. It 
was the great glory of the Reformation that it 
opened the volume of the Holy Scrij^tures freely 
to the laity, and made the oracles of God com- 
mon property. These Scriptures were for all to 
read, and for all to hear. They were to be stud- 
ied in the closet; the}', and the expositions of them 
given by those who had received authority to 
preach the word of God, were to be listened to 
in the Church. Now, as regards these exercises 
of reading and hearing the word of God, there 
was an hiatus in the ancient Collects. Little or 



480 SECOND COLLECT AT THE END 

no reference was found in tliem to tlie study of 
the Scriptures, partly because, before the inven- 
tion of printing, the study was necessarily limited 
to so ver}^ few, and partly because the clergy be- 
fore the Reformation showed a tendency to mo- 
nopolize the Holy Scriptures, and to let them be 
known only by such extracts as formed part of 
the Church Services; — it was thought injudicious 
to throw them open, and invite all the world to 
search them dail3\ Our Reformers, therefore, 
had to address themselves to the task of compos- 
ing new Collects for the right study of the word 
of God, and for the right hearing of it when read 
or preached; and nobly have they done their 
work, and filled the gap which they found in the 
ancient Offices. The Collect for the Second 
Sunday in xldvent is for a right use of the text 
of the Holy Scriptures, for grace to read them 
devoutly and thoughtfully in our closet, and to 
hsten to them devoutly and thoughtfully, when 
read, either in the services of the Church or pri- 
vately, as by some master of a family at Family 
Prayer, or by some district visitor to those who 
cannot themselves read. The present Collect is 
of a rather different scope. Its j^rincipal refer- 
ence is to preaching — that exercise to which the 
Reformation gave such prominence, and by which, 
indeed, the Reformation was brought about; al- 
though it does not exclude, but rather distinctly 
embraces, the Epistle and Gospel, and other 
Scriptures, which in the course of the Church 
Service have been read in our ears; both will 



OF THE COMMUNION SERVICE. 481 

equally fall under the category of " words which 
we have heard this day with our outward 
ears." 

" Grant, we" beseech thee, Almighty God, that 
the words which we have heard this da^^ with our 
outward ears." The expression "outward ears" 
is not found in Holy Scripture in so many words; 
but it is very significant, and its equivalent is 
found there. " Let these sayings sink down into 
your ears," said our Lord to His disciples respect- 
ing those predictions of His sufferings and death, 
which it behoved them so much to lay to heart, 
lest they should be staggered when the events 
came to pass. "Lodge them in 3'our ears," as 
much as if He would say, "Be not forgetful 
hearers; lay them uj) in your memories." In the 
Latin tongue there are tv/o words for hearing, 
one which denotes the mere reception of sounds 
into the ear — physical hearing; the other, which 
signifies a mental act of attention going along 
with the reception of the sounds — in short, listen- 
ing to, as well as hearing. A noise or inarticulate 
sound is merely heard; but a direction given by 
the voice (like an order from a caj)tain of a vessel, 
which the sailors immediately execute) is not 
heard only but attended to. Something, how- 
ever, beyond and deeper even than attention, is 
necessary in order to receive the word of God 
aright. We receive it not with the mind, but 
with the heart. And it is, if I may so express it, 
the object and rationale of the ordinance of preach- 
ing to turn God's word into His voice, to bring 



482 SECOND COLLECT AT TLIE END 

out in such clear and articulate accents as may 
reach, the sinner's inward ear, and resound in his 
heart and conscience, those notes of warning, of 
consolation, of hope, which lie mute on the pages 
of Holy Scripture, like the notes of a harpsichord 
before the musician strikes it. 

" May through thy grace be so grafted inwardly 
in our hearts." The imagery of our Collect is 
borrowed from the process of planting; and hence 
it is probable that the passage which the writer 
had in his mind, and on which the Collect is de- 
signedly built, was that in the Epistle of St. 
James: "Wherefore lay apart all filthiness and 
superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meek- 
ness the engrafted word, which is able to save 
your souls." All the ministerial labor in the 
Avorld, however faithful, however diligent, could 
no more make a single heart to blossom with 
a single holy desire and good counsel — much less 
to bring forth fruit in a single good work — than 
all the agricultural labor in the world, however 
skilful and industrious, could make a blade of 
grass to grow a single inch. And yet without 
the sowing and planting there could be no har- 
vest. Man's endeavor must concur with God's 
grace to produce the effect. The words must be 
spoken to the outward ear; but it is only " through 
thy grace " that they can be grafted inwardly in 
the heart. 

" That they may bring forth in us the fruit of 
good liying," The passage of St. James is still 
in the writer's view, in which, after speaking of 



OF THE COMMUNION SERVICE. 483 

receiving the engrafted word with meekness, he 
adds that pregnant warning : "But be ye doers 
of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your 
own selves." "Be ye doers of it; " there must be 
something more than the " holy desire," which is 
the blade, and the " good counsel " (or resolve), 
which is the blossom; there must be the "^just 
work," which is the fruit, the full corn in the ear, 
the realized result. St. Paul is as strong as St. 
James in insisting upon the necessity of realized 
results, that is, on works, as distinct from, and as 
the evidence of, sentiments : " That 3'e might walk 
worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being/?7«Y- 
ful in every good icoiic." That He might redeem 
us from all iniquity, and j^urify unto Himself a 
peculiar people, zealous of good ivorks." 

" To the honor and praise of thy name." Here 
comes into the thought of the writer another 
passage of St. Paul: "Being filled with the fruits 
of righteousness which are by Jesus Christ, to 
the glory and praise of God," — the " glory " of 
God being His intrinsic excellence, the beauty 
and blessedness of His character as it is in itself; 
His "praise" being the acknowledgment of that 
excellence by His rational creatures, angels and 
men. St. Paul in these words merely echoes 
what our Lord had said in connection with His 
allegory of the Vine: " Herein is my Father glo- 
rified, that ye bear much fruit " (that ye be "filled 
with the fruits of righteousness "), "so shall ye 
be my disciples; " so shall ye become in deed and 
in truth disciples of Him, who, by the labors of 



484 THIRD COLLECT AT THE END 

His life and tlie expiation of His death, brought 
a rich harvest of human souls to God, and made 
the whole earth to resound with His praises. 



Efje S:i)trti Collect at tlje tm of tlje 
Communion Ser&ice* 

Direct us, Lord, in all our doings with thy most gra' 
clous favor, and further us with thy continual help, 
that in all our works begun, continued, and ended in 
thee, tve may glorify thy holy Name, and finally by 
tliy mercy obtain everlasting life; through Jesus 
Christ our Lord. Amen. 

Actiones nostras, qucesumus, Domine, ei aspirando proe- 
veni, et adjuvando prosequere: et cuncta nostra ope- 
ratio a te semper incipiat, et per te coeptafiniatur. 
Per Dominum. (Gbeg. Sac, Miss. Sae.) 

THIS Collect traces back to the Sacramentary 
of Gregory, where it is found as a Prayer 
to be said on the Ember Saturday in Lent, that 
is, on the day preceding the Spring Ordination, 
a place which it retains in the Missal of Sarum. 
But in that Missal it is found also in a more gen- 
eral connection. It there stands as the last prayer 
in the Canon of the Mass, and is appointed to be 
said by the Priest in the Sacristy, when he has 
finished the Office, and has taken off the vest- 
ments of the Mass. Our Eeformers therefore 
have retained its connection with the Commun- 
ion Service. 

" Direct us, O Lord, in all our doinofs with thy 



OF THE COMMUNION SERVICE. 485 

most gracious favor." The words "with thy fa- 
vor " are a free, and 3'et an accurate, rendering 
of the original Collect. The more literal trans- 
lation would be, " Direct our actions, O Lord, by 
breathing upon us." Now, to breathe upon a 
vessel, which is just spreading her sails for a voy- 
age, is to favor her; we speak in such cases of a 
favorable gale springing up and propelling the 
vessel on her course. Thus it is that the Latin 
word for "breathing upon" comes to have a de- 
rivative sense of favoring, prospering. The " most 
gracious favor," however, here spoken of must 
not be regarded simply as the smile of God rest- 
ing externalh) on our undertakings, but rather 
as His "special grace," prompting and inspir- 
ing them within our hearts. Inasmuch as " God 
is a spu'it," His favor always shows itself in a 
spiritual form, is, in short, "special grace." 
God's smile in outward nature, which is the 
sunshine, is never inoperative; it always quickens 
the animal and vegetable worlds. And similarly 
His smile upon the heart alwaj-s quickens there 
" holy desires, and good counsels." 

" And further us with th}' continual help." 
The words of the Tenth Article are the best com- 
ment upon this: "' AYe have no power to do good 
works pleasant and acceptable to God, without 
the grace of God by Christ preventing us, that 
we may have a good will, and working with us, 
when we have that good w^ill." The words have 
a perfectly general as well as a special reference. 
The circumstance of God's having forestalled or 



486 THIRD COLLECT AT THE END 

antici}3ated us, by breathing good counsels into 
our hearts, and putting good desires into our 
minds, is a ground for trusting that He will 
" further us with His help " in bringing the same 
to good effect ; according to that word of St. Paul's, 
" Being confident of this very thing, that He which 
hath begun a good work in you, will perform it 
until the day of Jesus Christ." 

" That in all our works begun, continued, and 
ended in thee;" literally, "that our every work 
may ever begin " (take its rise) ''from thee, and 
being begun, may through thee be brought to a 
conclusion." Our translators represent both the 
from and the through hj the preposition in; and 
they have done well in making express mention 
of the continuance of the work, as well as of its 
beginning and close; for surely we are more apt 
to give attention to the beginnings and endings 
of our works than to their progress; we mark the 
beginning and the close of our day with prayer, 
but are by no means so ready to carry the spirit 
of prayer with us throughout the da}^ and to 
intersperse our actions with holy ejaculations. 
What is the meaning of beginning, continuing, 
and ending an action in God? "In Him," it is 
said of our natural lives, " we live, and move, 
and have our being;" — "in Him," as in an at- 
mosj^here, the continuous inhalations and exhal- 
ations of which are necessary to our existence. 
And much more is God the sj^iritual and moral 
atmosphere, by which the immortal part of us, 
the soul and spirit, is maintained in hfe. He who 



OF THE COMMUNION SERVICE. 487 

bj faith draws God into liis heart, and goes out 
towards God in constant prayer, which is the ut- 
terance of faith, dwells in God and God in him. 
"That we may glorify thy holy Name." This 
latter part of the Collect is entirely wanting in 
the original. It is an addition made by the Re- 
formers, and a very significant and edifying one. 
Dean Comber entitles the Collect "A Prayer for 
success in all our actions." But it should be 
explained that the success petitioned for is not 
worldly success, but success of the highest possi- 
ble kind — the end solicited, as that at which the 
action is aimed, and which it is desired to achieve 
by it, is "the glory of God's holy Name." In a 
worldly sense, the undertaking might be an utter 
failure, and yet, if it should have contributed in 
any measure to God's glory, the prayer would 
have been answered. But it is hypocrisy to pray 
that God's glory may be promoted by our actions, 
unless we aim them at His glory, — sincerely in- 
tend them for that end. Here, then, it is insin- 
uated, that our daily work must be done for, as 
well as in, God; that it must be directed towards 
Him, as well as done under His eye. HajDpy, thrice 
hapj)}^, is he who has consecrated his actions by 
such recollections of God and such an aim. Yet, 
forasmuch as these recollections are not as con- 
stant, and this aim not so single, as they ought to 
be, and as God's law and holiness demand that 
they shall be, he cannot stand before God on 
the ground of his doings, but simply and solely 
on the ground of God's mercy in Christ. And 



488 FOURTH COLLECT AT THE END 

therefore the hast clause of the prayer is framed 
with great adroitness to exclude the idea of hu- 
man merit, even in those who have wrought their 
works in and for God, and to remind us that, 
whate^Tr attainments we may have made in the 
divine life, our salvation is due, from tirst to last, 
to grace. Though God's holy name may have 
been gioriiied by us in our actions, it is only 
"by" His "mercy" that any of us can "obtain 
everlasting life." 



Elje JFciuiHj (follcrt at tl}r riitr of tljc 
ffi'ommuuion <$crfairr* 

Ahniglily God, the fountain of all icisdom, icJio knowe^it 
our necessities hpfore we asf>; and otir ignorance in 
asking; We beseech thee to hare compassion upon our 
i)ijirmities; and those things, which for our un wor- 
thiness we dare not, and/or our biijidness we cannot 
ask, vouchsafe to give us, for the woi'thi/iess of t?ii/ 
Son Jesus Christ otir Lord. Amen. (a. d. 1549.) 

THIS admirable prayer made its first appear- 
ance in 1549, and is due to Cranmer and 
the Committee associated with him. It is well 
entitled by Dean Comber, " A Prayer to supply 
the Defects of our other Devotions ;" for it points 
out the sources from which those defects arise, 
and the quarter to which we must look to supply 
them. But it will be well to draw attention to 
the fact that our devotions are and must be very 
defective. Let it be assumed that, in pubhc wor- 



OF THE COMMUNION SERVICE. 489 

ship, we use a liturgy like our own, the heritage 
of ages of pietj, and enriched, too, with the ex- 
perience of more moderi^ times; a liturgy, on the 
structure and composition of which minds of great 
literary poAver, as well as of fervent piety, have 
been brought to bear; and also that in stated 
private prayer, though the ex^^ression may be left 
to the moment, we carefully arrange and meth- 
odize our thoughts, and observe the principle 
laid down by the wise man for our approaches to 
God, "Before thou prayest, prepare th^'self;" 
"Be not rash Avith thy mouth, and let not thine 
heart be hasty to utter anything before God : for 
God is in heaven, and thou upon earth; therefore 
let thy words be few." Even with these condi- 
tions and precautions, our pra^^ers need sui^ple- 
menting- and correcting; they omit, or specify 
but scantily, some things supremely desirable; 
solicit (it may be) what would be undesirable; 
are sometimes short-sighted, sometimes presump- 
tuous. And it is from a deep, instinctive feeling 
of this defectiveness that the Church has scrupu- 
lously embodied in her every Office the Lord's 
Prayer, and has directed it (as at Morning and 
Evening Prayer) to be more than once said, and 
that in all acts of stated prayer, public and pri- 
vate, it has been customary for Christians to re- 
cite it. For the Lord's Prayer is not only a 
model of prayer, which therefore we should al- 
waj's have before us when we pray, that we may 
frame our petitions according to the tenor of 
it, but also a perfect form, comprising all that we 



490 FOURTH COLLECT AT THE END 

can want or wish for to make us holy here and 
happy hereafter; and therefore, by offermg it in- 
telligently, we let nothing escape ns for which we 
ought to pray. 

" Almighty God, the fountain of all wisdom." 
The expression "fountain of wisdom," as ajD- 
plied to God, is not found in so many words in 
Scripture; but it is none the less Scriptural; and 
one is glad to find the Reformers doing what the 
older Collect writers did — expressing themselves 
independently of Scriptural phrase, and careful 
only that the idea shall be Scriptural. " If any 
of you lack wisdom," says St. James, " let him 
ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally and 
upbraideth not; and it shall be given him." — But 
connecting this first clause with what follows it, 
and with the petition which is founded upon it, 
we see that the wisdom here principally intended 
is a knowledge of man's necessities. And a knowl- 
edge of man's necessities presumes an insight into 
his heart. For his necessities are not only, and 
not chiefly, those of an animal, but those of a 
moral and spiritual being. He wants not food 
and raiment merely, but (even more urgently) 
forgiveness and strength, and moral guidance, 
and moral discipline. If, in one way more than 
another, we are apt to go wrong in our prayers, 
it is by subordinating the higher wants of our 
nature to the lower. The necessities of the body 
make themselves known unto us through our 
senses. But the higher necessities of the soul 
are "naked and opened unto the eyes of Him," 



OF THE COMMUNION SERVICE. 491 

who is "the fountain of wisdom," and only known 
to us, so far as He communicates to us of His 
wisdom. 

"Who knowest our necessities before we ask." 
The words are those of our Lord in the Sermon 
on the Mount : "Your Father knoweth what things 
ye have need of, before j^e ask Him." And it 
will be found that He uses them there in two dis- 
tinct connections, first, as an argument against 
"vain repetitions " in prayer-, and then as an ar- 
gument against anxieties. God does not need to 
be informed of our wants; therefore there is no 
call for any but few and simple words in pra^'er. 
And, again, there is no call for solicitude about 
bodily necessities, since He who knows our wants 
will supply them, if we are sincerely bent upon 
His service. When, therefore, we call uj)on God 
as one who " knoweth our necessities before we 
ask," it is as if we threw ourselves upon Him with 
the avowal that we can never sufficiently repre- 
sent to Him all we need, and with trust that His 
goodness will furnish us with all that His wisdom 
sees to be needful for us. 

"And our ignorance in asking." It is obvious 
that, in asking for worldly good things, our ig- 
norance might fatally mislead us. What we covet 
most might, as our Lord insinuates in His great 
prayer-precept in the Sermon on the Mount, prove 
to be " a stone," or even "a serpent," or "a scor- 
pion." But even as regards spiritual blessings, 
where the thing sued for cannot but be advan- 
tageous, it is only in exact proportion as we know 



492 FOURTH COLLECT AT THE END 

our own spiritual state that we can direct oui 
prayers ariglit. He that does not thoroughly 
know the evil of his own heart, cannot thoroughly 
know what spiritual blessings he has need to sue 
for. And although those who live under the dis- 
cipline of God's Spirit, and in the practice of self- 
examination, know something of this evil, yet no 
one knows as much of it as he might ; and there- 
fore, even when the spiritual man is soliciting 
spiritual blessings, a certain amount of ignorance 
and blindness clouds his view of his own neces- 
sities. * 

"We beseech thee to have compassion upon 
our infirmities." The appeal is made to God the 
Father, as in that touching prayer of the Litany: 
" We humbly beseech thee, O Father, mercifully 
to look upon our infirmities." And the words 
immediately recall to mind the assurance wdiich 
the Heavenly Father Himself gives us by the 
mouth of the Psalmist — an assurance, be it ob- 
served, which stands in immediate connection 
with the free and large removal of our transgres- 
sions from us: "Like as a father pitieth his chil- 
dren, so the Lord pitieth them that fear Him. 
For He knoweth our frame; He remembereth that 
we are dust." Nor was this assurance a mere 
verbal one on God's part. He confirmed it, and 
gave us evidence of it by act, when, in the person 
of His Son, He took our nature upon Him, and 
placed Himself in our circumstances, and was "in 
all points tempted like as we are." "Likew^ise 
the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities : for loe know 



OF THE COMMUNION SERVICE. 493 

not idiat lue should pra?/ for as ive ought: but the 
Spil'it itself maketh intercession for us with groan- 
ings which cannot be uttered." Thus God the 
Father conij^assionates our infirmities as a Cre- 
ator, who, while He made man in His own image, 
formed him at the same time of the dust of the 
ground. God the Son compassionates our infir- 
mities, as One who has taken our nature upon 
Him, and shared our cii-cumstances. "While God 
the Holy Spirit brings down the Divine sympathy 
of the Father and the Son to the succor of the 
individual Christian, and makes it a realit}^ in our 
experience by the internal assistance which He 
gives us in our prayers. 

" And those things which, for our un worthiness 
we dare not, and for our blindness we cannot ask." 
•Our "blindness" (or "ignorance") has been al- 
ready mentioned as a source of the defectiveness 
of our prayers; but here is another source — "our 
unworthiness," the consciousness of which makes 
us backward to ask "great things," apt to put 
our requests at the lowest. "Lord, I am not 
worthy that thou shouldest enter under my roof," 
cried the humble centurion: "wherefore neither 
thought I myself worthy to come unto thee." 
"Lord, I am not worthy to be with thee in 
those royalties and glories to which thou art 
hastening," thought the poor dying thief; "but 
do npt forget me ; let me have but a place in thy 
memory in the future age, ' when thou comest 
into thy kingdom.'" And both incidents show 
us how largely and liberally God responds to such 



494 FIFTH COLLECT AT THE END 

an acknowledgment of unwortliiness, how He does 
for the humble " exceeding abundantly, above all 
that they ask or think." 

" Vouchsafe to give us for the worthiness of thy 
Son, Jesus Christ our Lord." This is a beautiful 
finishing touch, completing the cycle of ideas 
through which the prayer has led our minds. 
There is justice, after all, in the ^^lea which the 
penitent and humbled sinner, conscious of his 
own blindness and indesert, has to put forth with 
God. And if he have "put on Christ" by faith, 
he may believe that God looks on him through 
the Son of His love, and sees in him no longer 
his own transgressions and shortcomings, but 
that Son's worthiness. 



Ei}e iFtftlj Collect at tl}e enti of tl)e 
Communion $eriitce* 

Almighty God, xclio hast promised io hear the petitions 
of those luho ash in thy Son's Name; We beseech thee 
mercifidly to incline thine ears to us who have now 
made our prayers and supplications unto thee; and 
grant, thai those things, which 'we have faithfully 
ashed according to thy will, may effectually he ob- 
tained, to the relief of our necessity, and to the set- 
ting forth of thy glory; through Jesus Christ our 
Lord. Amen. (a. d. 1549.) 

THIS Collect, like the last, made its first ap- 
pearance in 1549, and is due to Cranmer 
and the Commissioners associated with him. It 



OF THE COMMUNION SERVICE. 495 

is evidently designed as a concluding pra^'er, 
since it asks for God's acceptance of those 
" prayers and suj)plications " which we have 
'' now made unto " Him ; and thus it gives a 
roundness and logical finish to the Communion 
Service, at the end of which it stands, or to any 
series of prayers after which it may be recited. 
He who drew it up must have drunk deep into 
the spirit of the early Collect-writers, for, in a 
very short comj)ass, it embraces all the condi- 
tions of successful j)rayer, both those which con- 
nect themselves with the character of the pe- 
titioner, and with the nature of the petition. 
Indeed it is a little homily on praj^er; the spirit 
in which it should be offered, and the results 
which may be expected from it. 

" Almighty God, who hast j)romised to hear the 
petitions of those who ask in thy Son's Name." 

The reference, of course, is to certain words 
of our Lord in His discourses which culminated 
in the great High-priestly prayer recorded in 
St. John xvii. : "Veril}^, verily, I say unto you, 
whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in m}^ name, 
He will give it you." The asking in the Son's 
name implies something much deeper, and en- 
tering much more into the texture of the char- 
acter, than we are apt to imagine. To close each 
prayer with ^q formula "through Jesus Christ 
our Lord," as we must do, if we use the Church 
prayers, is not to ask in the name of the Son. 
To understand that our prayers can only be lis- 
tened to, and we ourselves only accepted, for 



496 FIFTH COLLECT AT THE END 

Christ's sake, and to give an intelligent assent 
to this doctrine as a certain religious truth, this 
is not to ask in the name of the Son. The prom- 
ises cited above must be taken in connection "^^dth 
that other promise in the same series of discourses: 
" If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, 
ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done 
unto you." To ask in His Name involves the be- 
ing in Him, the receiving Him by faith into the 
heart and affections, and by loving submission 
into the conscience and will. And this is a very 
high spiritual attainment. 

" We beseech thee mercifully to incline thine 
ears to us, who have now made our prayers and 
supplications unto thee." 

Mark the word " supplications." It is no vain 
repetition, — no idle word, thrust in to make the 
clause rliA'thmical to the ear. A supplication is 
an earnest prayer, a prayer urged with instancy 
and fervor, and in the depth of distress. Our 
Litan}" is rightly called not a prayer, but a " Gen- 
eral Supplication," on account of the intensity 
and fervor of its petitions, as well as the deep 
humiliation and prostration of heart which it 
contemplates in the petitioners. It is implied 
then, by the use of this word in this connection, 
that if our prayer is to be successful, it must be 
imj)ortunate and persevering; that it must not 
be a mere lazy wish, flitting like a summer cloud 
over the surface of the soul, but must gather 
into itself all the force of the will and character, 
— that it must be (to adopt the Saviour's own 



OF THE COMMUNION SERVICE. 497 

words) not only an asking but a seeking, as the 
woman sought her lost coin with solicitude and 
earnestness; not a seeking only, but a knocking 
at Heaven's gate, until He that is within answers; 
as the friend at midnight knocked until he roused 
his slumbering neighbor. If we would prevail 
with God, as Jacob did, we must address oui*- 
selves to the task in something of Jacob's spirit: 
"I will not let thee go except thou bless me." 

" And grant that those things which we have 
faithfally asked." Here is a third condition of 
successful prayer. Prayer is a remedy for our 
necessities and distresses, in which we must place 
faith while we use it. " What things soever ye 
desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive 
them, and ye shall have them." For it is only 
in the strength of the persuasion that he will 
eventually obtain what he asks, that any man 
can be importunate and fervent with God. If 
he loses belief in prayer's efficacy, that loss of 
belief paralyzes his efforts, cuts the nerve of 
prayer altogether. 

" According to thy will." Here is a condition 
of successful prayer connected, not with the char- 
acter of the petitioner, but with the nature of the 
thing asked. The thing asked must be accord- 
ing to the will of God. " This is the confidence 
that we have in Him, that, if we ask anything 
according to Hk will, He heareth us." The safe 
and sure rule is to let the keynote of submission 
to God's will be heard in all our petitions, to 
ask freely and definitely for whatever ^ve con- 



498 FIFTH COLLECT AT THE END 

ceive to be advantageous, but to qualify even 
our strongest and most passionate longings with 
a spirit of acquiescence in a will infinitely more 
Avise, more farsighted, more considerate of all 
tlie circumstances of the case, than our own. 
"Thy will be done," is to be regarded not 
merely as an isolated petition of the Lord's 
Prayer. It is a keynote which rules the entire 
strain. 

" May be effectually obtained, to the relief of 
our necessity." What a protest have we in these 
words against the notion, which finds so much 
favor nowadays, that prayer has only a subjective 
value, that it effects nothing, alters nothing ex- 
ternally, is simply useful as exercising a soothing, 
healing, sanctifying influence on our own minds. 
On the contrary, what says our Collect? "We 
"obtain" things ^'^effectually'' thereby; prayer 
brings "relief" to "our necessity." Why should 
we doubt it? How can we doubt it, if we be- 
lieve in the existence of a God, — of a Being, that 
is, who imposed laws on nature, and works by 
means of and according to those laws, but yet 
is not bound by the laws which He Himself im- 
poses, can dispense with them if He pleases, or, 
without dispensing with them, can bring stronger 
counteractive laws into operation, which, so far 
as the result is concerned, amounts to the same 
thing ? 

" And to the setting forth of thy glory." Well 
and wisely does the Collect end by reminding 
us that God has an object in granting prayer, 



OF THE COMMUNION SERVICE. 499 

beyond the relieving of our necessities, and to 
which the reheving of our necessities immedi- 
ately contributes — " the setting forth of " His 
"glory." God's glory is set forth, when we 
bless and praise Him for the relief which we 
have exj)erienced. When the lame man at the 
Beautiful gate of the temple was miraculously 
recovered from his lameness, he walked and 
leaped and praised God. 

And is not this reminder of thanksgiving, as 
being the appropriate result of relief experi- 
enced from the hand of God, wholesome and 
necessary ? For are not many recipients of God's 
bounty like the nine unthankful lepers in the Gos- 
pels ? And are there not many, " the filling of 
whose mouths is the stopping of theii* throats," 
— many who cry, under the pressure of sickness 
and adversitj^, "Jesus, Master, have mercy on 
us," but as soon as they have experienced relief 
in answer to their prayers, are not found among 
those who return " to give glory to God " ? 



500 THE COLLECT AT THE END OF 



W^t Collect at tl}r run of tlje ©rtier 
of (Confirmatioiu 

Almighty Lord, and everlasling God, vouchsafe^ ice 
beseech thee, to direct, sanctify, and govern, both our 
hearts and bodies, in the ways of thy laws, and in the 
icorA's of thy commandments; that through thy most 
mighty protection, both here and ever, we may 6epre- 
serred in body and soul; through our Lo7'd and Sa- 
viour Jesus Christ. Amen. 

Dirigere et sanctificare et regere diguare, Domine Deus, 
qucesumus, corda et corpora nostra in lege tua, et in 
operibus mandatormn tuorum: ut hie et in ceternum 
ie auxiliante sani et salvi esse mereamur; per Domi- 
ninn nostrum Jesum, qui tecum rivit, etc. (Bkev. 
Sak., PsAii. Bab.) 

THIS Collect is foiind in the Sarum Psalter, 
as part of the devotions for Prime, or the 
first hour of the daA'. It there stands as the 
concluding Collect for the Office of Prime, and 
thus may be regarded as the final prayer, by 
which the Christian arms himself to meet the 
trials and duties of the day. 

As to the use of the Collect by the Eeformed 
Church, it is to be remarked that it did not hold 
this place originally, but was transplanted from 
the end of the Communion Service at the last 
Eevision of our Offices in 1661. And surely it 
was a most felicitous and appropriate addition 
to the Confirmation Service. What can be more 
appropriate to such an occasion than a prayer, 
the concluding aspiration of which is that both 



THE ORDER OF CONFIRMATION. 501 

soul and body may be preserved both here and 
ever, through God's most mighty protection ? 

"O Almighty Lord, and everlasting God." 
The ejDithets were inserted b}' the translators in 
1549, the invocation of the Latin Collect being 
simply " O Lord God;" but they both have their 
force and point in reference to the thing j^eti- 
tioned for. It is a " might}^ j)^'^^^^^^^^ " ""^-'hich 
we sue for, to shield us amid the difficulties and 
dangers of our pilgrimage ; and it is a protection 
which is to extend itself into that other state of 
existence, which we glance at when we sa}^ "both 
here and exer." It is therefore to an "Almighty 
Lord, and everlasting God " that we resort for 
such protection. 

"Vouchsafe, we beseech thee, to direct, sanc- 
tify, and govern both our hearts and bodies." 
To "sanctify" stands midway between the two 
words to " direct " and to " govern," and embraces 
the ideas convej^ed by both of them. To sanctify, 
as applied to God, is to shed the influences of 
the Holy Spii'it upon a person. Now, these in- 
fluences are of two kinds: the Holy Spirit guides, 
and the Holy kSpirit also governs; He is the pilot 
of our vessels over the waves of this troublesome 
world; and also their captain, who gives orders 
to the crew. In plain words, the Holy Spirit, by 
enlightening our minds, shows us what is the 
path of duty, and by influencing our will and af- 
fections induces us to walk therein. 

" Both our hearts and bodies " — in the Latin, 
" corda et corpora nostra," there being here again 



502 THE COLLECT A T THE END OF 

that alliteration and play upon sounds, of which 
the old Collect writers were so fond. But a mere 
play upon sounds would be an unworthy artifice, 
unless it were borne out by the sense. Are our 
bodies then the subject of sanctification, of Di- 
vine direction, of Divine government, as well as 
our souls ? The body, the mere animal element 
of our nature, what has it to do with religion, 
with the influences or exercises of religion, with 
the worship and service of Almighty God? 
Whatever objections of this kind might be 
raised to the Collect, must be alleged against 
the Scriptures themselves, not against the Book 
of Common Prayer, which follows humbly in the 
footprints of Scripture. St. Paul thus prays for 
his Thessalonian converts: "The very God of 
peace sanctify you wholly " (in every department 
of your composite nature) : " and I pray God your 
whole spirit and soul and body be preserved 
blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus 
Christ." The body, therefore, is to be sanctified 
no less than the spirit and the soul, and its sanc- 
tification is to be made the subject of j^rayer and 
Christian effort. And this on several grounds. 
In the first place; the body was an original ele- 
ment of human nature, as it came fresh and un- 
corrupted from the hands of God. A disembodied 
soul is not a man, any more than a corpse is. 
And therefore, if man is to be saved as man, his 
body, as well as his soul, must be recovered from 
the effects of sin. And this cannot be done un- 
less the work of Christ and of the Spirit take 



THE ORDER OF CONFIRMATION. 503 

effect upon his body as well as his soul. And 
therefore we ask, in the Prayer of Access, "that 
our sinful bodies may be made clean by " Christ's 
"body," as well as "our souls washed through 
His most precious blood," and in the prayer be- 
fore us, that " our bodies," no less tha.?! " our 
hearts," may be "directed, sanctified, and gov- 
erned." — Secondly; as a token that the sanctifica- 
tion of man is to extend to his body, God has 
incorporated into the Christian religion two out- 
ward visible signs, the washing of the body Avith 
water, and the nourishment of the bod}" with 
bread and wine. If we were designed to be 
wholly and merely S2oiritual beings, these outward 
visible signs would be impertinent and out of 
place. Why is the body to receive the stamp of 
God's consecration upon it, if it is not ultimately 
to be a sharer in the salvation of the soul? — • 
Thirdly; even in our present condition of exist- 
ence, the members of our bodies, which previously 
to our conversion had been yielded " as instru- 
ments of unrighteousness unto sin, are to be 
yielded as instruments of righteousness unto 
God," our ears to hear His word, our e3"es to 
read His book and survey His works, our feet to 
travel on His errands, our hands to do His work, 
our mouth to speak His praises. — And lastly; it 
is a truth of Revelation, and one of its rudiment- 
ary truths, since it enters into the Apostles' 
Creed, that the body of man, infirm though it is 
in its present state, and a badge of degradation, 
and ever hastening to corruption and decay, shall 



504 THE COLLECT AT THE END OF ' 

be raised again in incorruption, in gioiy, and in 
power; a glorious blossom springing out of a bare 
grain; a spiritual body evolved by the mighty 
power of God from the natural. This resurrec- 
tion will consummate the sanctification of our 
bodies, which at present can only be inaugurated. 

Before passing away from this clause, we should 
not omit to remark that the word "hearts " comes 
before " bodies " in the prayer for direction and 
sanctification; and for the best of reasons, because 
(as good Dean Comber so well says) it is " in the 
affections of our hearts that sin is wont to begin, 
and by the members of our bodies it is too often 
accomplished." Our bodies move under the direc- 
tion of our wills, and our wills are swayed by our 
affections; and the seat of the affections is the 
heart. 

"In the ways of thy laws, and in the works 
of thy commandments." " Ways " is inserted 
by the translators, to correspond with and bal- 
ance the word "works." In the original the 
words are merely, " in thy law, and in the works 
of thy commandments." The heart is to be di- 
rected, sanctified, and governed "in the law;" 
and this is done when God, in pursuance of His 
new covenant, puts His laws into our hearts, and 
writes them in our minds, which terms of the new 
covenant we pray Him to fulfil to us, when we 
say, "Incline our hearts to keep this law;" 
"Write all these thy laws in our hearts, we be- 
seech thee." — The hody^ on the other hand, is to 
be directed, sanctified, and governed " in the 



THE ORDER OF CONFIRMATION. 505 

works of God's commandments," because tlie 
body is the great organ and instrument of activ- 
ity, and there can be no activity without it. 

" That through th}" most mighty protection, 
both here and ever, we may be perserved in body 
and soul." The hterai translation of the original 
Latin is, " that by thy hel]:), both here and ever, 
we may attain unto health and mlvation." Our 
rendering is at once free and accurate, " that we 
may be preserved in body " (there is the " health " 
of the original Latin) "and soul" (there is the 
" salvation "). There is a far more intimate con- 
nection than we are willing to allow\ as between 
the body and soul of man, so between the resto- 
ration of the two ; and that the restoration of the 
soul to spiritual soundness, w4iich is and must 
be accomplished " here," is a pledge and instal- 
ment of that bodily recovery, which awaits God's 
true people when the}'' awake up after God's 
likeness, and are clothed upon with " the house 
not made with hands, eternal in the heavens," 
"that mortality may be swallowed up of life." 
Our Saviour's miracles, which w^ere chiefly mir- 
acles of healing, and His commission to the Apos- 
tles " to preach the kingdom of God, and to heal 
the sick," are indications of this connection to 
the thoughtful mind. 



506 THE COLLECT FOR PEACE. 



SCfje Collect for Peace, at JHornms 
Prager* 

God, who art the author of peace and lover of concord, 
in knowledge of whom siandeih our eternal Ufe, ichose 
service is i^e^ fact freedom; Defend us thy humble ser- 
vants ill all assaults of our enemies, that we, surely 
trusting in thy defence, may not fear the power of 
any adversaries; through the might of Jesus Christ 
our Lo7'd. Amen. 

Deus, auctor pads ei amator, quein nosse vivere; cut 
servire regnare; protege ah omnihus impugnationi- 
bus supp)lices tuos; ut qui in defensione tua confidi- 
mus, nullius hoslilitatis arma timeamus. Per, etc. 
(Gel. Sac, Miss. Sae., Bbev. Sae.) 

'^jT^HIS noble prayer is derived ultimately from 
J- the Sacramentar}" of Gelasius, the second 
in order of the three great Sacramentaries, and 
the date of which is the last decade of the fifth 
century. It appears there as a Collect to be said 
at the Post-Communion in a Mass for Peace, the 
Collect of the Mass being that even more beau- 
tiful one, which stands in our Prayer Book as the 
Second Collect at Evening Prayer. The CoUect 
before us appears not only in the Missal (or Com- 
munion Office) of Sarum, but also in the Sarum 
Breviary, or Book containing the Daily Offices of 
the Church, and corresponding to our Matins 
and Evensong, which indeed were for the most 
part comj^iled out of and abridged from these 
daily Offices. It is found in the Breviary as a 
Collect for Matins. 



AT MORNING PRAYER. 507 

" O God, who art the author of j^eace." Eight 
times in the course of St. Paul's Ej^istles (reckon- 
ing the Epistle to the Hebrews as one of them) 
is God styled '"' tlie God (or Lord) of jjeace." 
And in one of these passages our translators 
have inserted the word "author," which does not 
appear in the original, being mindful j)erhaps 
of the phraseology of this Collect, and not un- 
willing possibly to establish a connection in the 
minds of the people between the language of the 
Bible and that of the Prayer Book.' " God is not 
the author of confusion," says St. Paul to the Cor- 
inthians, "but of peace," — the peace here con- 
templated being in the first instance, as will be 
seen by a reference to the context, that of Church 
order, since what the Apostle is enjoining is an 
orderly performance of Divine service without 
unseemly interruptions, even where the speakers 
have all of them the supernatural gifts of tongues 
or prophecy. — But God makes peace in the world 
as well as in the Church. For how sings the 
Psalmist! He " maketh wars to cease unto the 
end of the earth; He breaketh the bow, and cut- 
teth the spear in sunder; He burneth the chariot 

1 There was an interval of sixty-two years between the 
First Prayer Book of Edward VI. (where this Collect first 
made its appearance) and King James's Translation of the 
Bible, v/hich was published in 1611. So much older is the 
English of the Prayer Book than that of the Bible. I do 
not doubt that other instances might be found, in which 
the translators of the Bible have sought to bring its phrase- 
ology into agreement with that of the Prayers of the Re- 
formed Church. 



508 THE COLLECT FOR PEACE, 

in tlie fire." — Nor is the peace wliich God makes, 
merely or cliiefly external. It is not raerelj peace 
among tlie discords and jars wrought by the un- 
ruly wills and affections of sinful men, but peace 
in our conflict with the Evil One, with the charges 
of an accusing conscience, and with the assaults 
of tem^Dtation. And observe that it is a peace, 
which consists not in freedom from molestations, 
but in victory over them. The only true peace 
for the seed of the woman is through trampling 
down of the serpent and of the seed of the ser- 
pent. And therefore St. Paul, after bidding the 
Romans "mark and avoid those who caused di- 
visions and offences " in the Church, traces these 
divisions and offences up to their fountain-head, 
and assigns the source and seat of the mischief, 
when he says, "And the God of peace shall bruise 
Satan under your feet shortly." 

"And lover of concord." The words " of con- 
cord " are an expansion of the original made by 
the translators, the literal rendering of the Latin 
words being, "O God, the author and lover of 
peace." And yet the word " concord " realh" 
contributes to the sense. Peace is with avowed 
enemies; but concord is with those who are in 
the position of friends, with members of the same 
family, of the same class as ourselves. Christ, in 
His great high-priestly prayer, prayed for His 
disciples, "that they all may be one; as thou. 
Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also 
may be one in us." 

"In knowledge of whom standeth our eternal 



AT MORNING PRAYER. 509 

life." This clause in the original is much terser 
than in the translation. It runs thus, "whom to 
know is to live." Which sentiment is, after all, 
only an echo or reproduction of our Lord's own 
words, " This is life eternal, that they might know 
thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom 
thou hast sent." Observe that eternal life in its 
seed and germ, if not in its expansion and devel- 
opment, is spoken of as the present possession 
of Gpd's true people : " He that belieyeth on me 
hath everlasting life." 

" Whose service is perfect freedom," — an ex- 
cellent, although a free translation. The original 
is, " cui servire, regnare est," " to whom to be in 
subjection is to reign." Subjection to God is 
man's truest nobilit}-, and secures the subjection 
to him of all other things. " Whose service is 
perfect freedom " reminds us of the assurance of 
the Lord Jesus that His 3'oke is easy and His 
burden is light, and again of those words of His 
Apostle's, "Now being made free from sin, and 
become servants to God, ye have 3'our fruit unto 
holiness, and the end everlasting life." 

" Defend us thy humble servants in all assaults 
of our enemies." The Latin Collect has "Pro- 
tect us from all assaults." There is a difference, 
not altogether trifling, between being "defended 
in all assaults" and being " protectedyro??i them." 
He who asks to be protected fi'om them asks mere- 
ly that the assaults may not be made. And it is 
often — j)6rhaps more often than not — God's will 
for us that the assaults should be made. We 



510 THE COLLECT FOR PEACE. 

move bj His appointment and providential or- 
dering in the midst of "dangers ghostly and 
bodily"; the fiery darts of temj)tation fly around 
us oil all sides, and we are hourly exposed to 
bodily risks, such as accident or infection. The 
prayer is that we may be invisibly shielded in the 
midst of these perils by His grace and providence, 
according to that prayer of our Master's for us, 
"Iprar^'not that thou shouldest take them out 
of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them 
from the evil." 

"That we, surely trusting in thy defence, may 
not fear the power of any adversaries," — however 
numerous, however malignant. Again, observe 
that it is not so much the ijower of the adversaries 
which we deprecate, and the assaults which in 
the exercise of that power they make upon us, as 
that /ear of them, which results from want of trust 
in God, and which, being in truth faithlessness, 
paralyzes our efforts to resist and subdue them. 
It is fear which makes us weak. 

" Through the might of Jesus Christ," — a pleas- 
ant and edifying variation made by our Reform- 
ers upon the usual mediation-ending, with which 
in the old Offices this Collect, like most others, 
terminated,^ — -reminding us that it is only through 
" Him that loved us " that we can be " conquer- 
ors" of the forces arrayed against us; that it is 
His promised succor w^e must look to in our 
temptations; and that we can do all things 
through Christ which strengtheneth us, and 
whose " strength is made perfect in weakness." 



THE COLLECT FOR GRACE. 511 



Clje Collect for ffirace, at fHorntng 

Lord, our heavenly Father, Ahnighti/ and eveiiasting 
God, who hast sa/eli/ brought lis to the beginning of 
this day; Defend us in the same with thy mighty 
power; and grant that this day we fall into no sin, 
neither run into any kind of danger; but that all our 
doings being ordered by thy governance, may be 
■ righteous in. thy sight; through Jesus Christ our 
Lord. AmeD. 

Domine sancte, Pater omnijyotens, ceterne Deus, qui nos 
rid principium hujus diei perxenire fecisti; tua nos 
hodie salva virtute; et concede ut in hac die ad nul- 
lum declinenius peccatum, nee idlum incurramus per- 
iculum, sed semper ad tuam justitiam faciendani 
omnis nostra actio tuo moderamine dirigatur. Per, 
etc. (Bkev. Sae.) 

THE germ of this noble Collect is found in 
the Sacramentary of Gelasius, where it 
stands as the first paragraph of a series of short 
prayers, headed "Prayers at Matins." In the 
Sacramentary of Gregory, as given us by Menard, 
it is found expanded, and in a form more nearly 
approaching to that which it bears amongst our- 
selves, while in the Sanim Breviary it ajopears 
in its fully developed form, and is appointed to 
be said at Prime, or the first hour. And one 
noticeable fact respecting it is, that the Roman 
Breviary, which also appoints it to be said at Prime, 
gives a different version of the latter part of it — 
one of the many little indications that the Church 



512 THE COLLECT FOR GRACE, 

of England had its own use before the Keforma- 
tion, and that this was not the same as the Roman 
use. 

" O Lord, our heavenly Father, Almighty and 
everlasting God." The invocation of the Latin 
Collect, literally translated, runs thus, " O holy 
Lord, almighty Father, everlasting God." The 
compilers of our Book of Common Prayer have, 
I think, been somewhat chary of the title " hoty " 
as applied to God in invocations. In that most 
sacred of all prayers, which our Lord poured 
forth to His Father on the eve of His Passion, 
He once calls God "holy Father," a circumstance 
which gives a special sacredness to the designation. 
The same title is applied to Almighty God in those 
two solemn hymns of praise in the Communion 
Office, the "Sanctas" and the "Gloria in excel- 
sis." In the introduction to the " Sanctus " God 
is called "holy Father," while in the "Sanctus" 
itself, as also in that sublime hymn, the "Te 
Deum," the very words of the Seraphim, as heard 
by Isaiah, are recited, and the three Persons are 
adored as "Holy, holy, holy." In the "Gloria 
in excelsis " the same attribute is ascribed to the 
Second Person of the Blessed Trinity : " For thou 
only art lioly; thou only art the Lord; thou only, 
O Christ," etc. And in the very earnest and al- 
most impassioned appeal in the Burial Service, 
appointed to be said " while the corpse is made 
ready to be laid into the earth," our Lord is ad- 
dressed as " O holy and most merciful Saviour," 
and again as " O holy and merciful Saviour." But 



AT MORNING PRAYER. 513 

the word " holy," being specially reverential, as 
that wherewith the angels adore God, while they 
veil their faces and their feet with their wings, 
does not, as far as I remember, occur in the 
Church prayers of daily usage. Here the com- 
pilers of the Prayer Book have exchanged the 
word for "heavenly," and most suitably, as it 
ap23ears to me. For the Collect is, as its head- 
ing indicates, a prayer " for Grace," that is, for 
the guidance and help of God's Spirit. And 
therefore, in asking for this guidance and help, 
we appropriately remind ourselves, by calling 
God our heavenly Father, of the beautiful prom- 
ise recorded both by St. Matthew and St. Luke : 
" If ye then, being evil, know how to give good 
gifts unto your children; how much more shall 
3^our heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to 
them that ask Him ? " 

"Everlasting God." From Archdeacon Free- 
man's "Principles of Divine Service," p. 371 (Ox- 
ford and London, 1855), I extract the following 
observation on the meaning which the word "ever- 
lasting" bears in this connection: — "The third 
Morning Collect is based on Psalms xc. and xci. 
From the former (vers. 1, 2) it derives its con- 
trasting of the pre-mundane Eternity — ex j^ayf'fi 
ante, as it seems to mean especiall}^ — of God with 
the days of man (vers. 3-12); and its prayer, 
'That all our doings being ordered,' etc. ('Pros- 
per Thou the work,' etc. ver. 17). From the 
latter Psalm it frames its petitions for bodily 
and spiritual protection on behalf of the mystical 



514 THE COLLECT FOR GRACE 

members of Him, of whom tlie Psalm primarily 
speaks (vers. 11-1.6)." 

" Wlio hast safely brought us to the beginning 
of this da}^" The word " safely " is the signifi- 
cant and valuable addition of the translators. 
One of the promises made to Israel in the Book 
of the prophet Hosea is: "I will make them to 
lie down safely." And here we thank God not 
merely for having brought us to another morn- 
ing; not merely for having sustained our life by 
His power ("I laid me down and slept; I awaked; 
for the Lord sustained me ") ; but for having de- 
fended us from those "perils and dangers of the 
night," of which mention is made in the Evening 
Collect for Aid Against Perils, and for having 
raised us up safely, with powers recruited and 
renewed by rest. 

" Defend us in the same by thy mighty power; " 
— more literally, " Save us to-day by thy power," 
reminding us of that verse of Psalm cvi., " IS'ev- 
ertheless He saved them for His name's sake, 
that He might make His mighty power to be 
kuown." But from what do we ask to be 
saved, preserved, defended? What follows an- 
swers the question. 

" And grant that this day we fall into no sin." 
The first and chief evil, from which we ask to 
be defended by God's " mighty power," is sin. 
In the original the words are, " Grant that this 
day we turn aside into no sin." The image is 
that very common Scriptural one of a man's 
conduct being his walk. To conduct oneself 



A 7' MORNING PRAYER. 515 

according to God's commandments is to walk 
straightforward in " the narrow way that leadeth 
unto life;" but to break these commandments 
or commit sin, is to turn aside out of the wa}'. 

" Neither run into any kind of danger." Here 
we pray to be delivered, not from sin only, but 
from its occasions. The words are, in the first 
instance, equivalent to " Lead us not into temj)- 
tation," as the former clause was to " Deliver us 
from evil." We deprecate trial, when we say: 
"Lead us not into temptation"; we pray that 
God would not bring us, by His Providence, 
into circumstances of trial. — But "a???/ kind of 
danger " will of course embrace bodily no less 
than spiritual risks. We may incur these risks 
— risks to life, health, and limb — unconsciously 
and indeliberatel3\ And we here x^ray that God 
would not allow us to incur them, would watch 
over us, when we are not watching over ourselves. 
And, if we live in the spirit of the petition, we 
shall not incur them deliberately, shall not tempt 
God's Providence by embarking in foolhardy en- 
terprises, when there is little or nothing to be 
gained by them. 

" But that all our doings being ordered by thy 
governance." The word rendered "governance " 
is sometimes employed to denote the guidance 
of a ship by its helm. And we here j)ray that 
in passing through the sea of this troublesome 
world, on which we are now embarking for an- 
other day's voyage, we may be piloted by God's 
Spirit, who uses our conscience as His compass, 



516 THE COLLECT FOR GRACE. 

and as His cliart ttie written word, wlierein are 
laid down all the shoals, hidden rocks, and quick- 
sands, of which we must steer clear, and the bear- 
ings which we must observe, if we Avould reach 
eventually "the land of everlasting life." 

" May be righteous in thy sight." " The steps 
of a good man," says the Psalmist, " are ordered 
by the Lord " (this is the " governance " of which 
the former clause s^^eaks), " and he delighteth in 
his way;" or, as our Prayer-Book Version has 
it, "maketh his way acceptable to himself," so 
that what the man does is " righteous in " God's 
" sight." It is an incentive to holy living, of 
which we are too apt to be forgetful, that with 
actions promj)ted by His Spirit, and which are 
the fruit of faith in Christ, God is well pleased. 
"Albeit," as our twelfth Article says, such "Avorks 
cannot put away our sins, and endure the severity 
of God's judgment; yet are they pleasing and 
acceptable to God in Christ." They and the 
doers of them, are " righteous in His sight." 



THE COLLECT FOR PEACE. 517 



W^z (Collect for Peace, at 3£tiening 
Prager* 

God, from wliom all holy desires, all good counsels, 
and all just works do proceed; Give unto thy ser- 
vants thai peace which the world cannot give; thai 
our hearts may be sei to obey thy commandments, 
and cdso that by thee, we, being defended from the 
fear of our enemies, may pass our time in rest and 
quietness; through the merits of Jesus Christ our 
Saviour. Amen. 

Deus, a quo sancta desideria, recta consllia, etjustasunt 
opera; da servis tuis illam, quam mundus dare nun 
potest, pacem; id et corda nostra, mandatis tuis dedita 
et, hosiium sublataformidine, tempura sinttuaprotec- 
tione tranquiila. Per, etc. (Gel. Sac, Miss. SaK., 
Bbev. Sab.) 

IN point of beauty and instructiveness this 
Collect ranks with the very first of those 
gems of devotion, which in such profusion adorn 
our Book of Common Prayer. But, beauti- 
ful as it is in the English translation, it is still 
more beautiful in the original; for in this, as in 
two or three other instances, the translation has 
disjointed the ideas, and broken up the unity of 
the prayer. It appears in the Missal of Sarum 
as the proper Collect of a Mass for Peace, the 
Gospel of which contains those words of our 
Lord, " These things have I spoken unto you, 
that in me ye might have peace," while at the 
Post-Communion of this Mass the Collect for 
Peace in our Morning Prayer is appointed to be 



518 THE COLLECT FOR PEACE, 

said. The Latin Collect brackets together under 
a single aspiration the peace in the heart, which 
is not otherwise to be experienced than in devo- 
tion to God's commandments, and the outward 
peace of times and circumstances, which comes 
from the removal of the fear of our enemies. 
Here is a literal translation: "O God, from whom 
all holy desires, all good counsels, and all just 
works do proceed; Give unto thy servants that 
peace which the world cannot give ; that both our 
hearts devoted to thy commandments, and our 
times also, all fear of our enemies being removed, 
may be tranquil under thy protection." The tran- 
quillity of the times is thus exhibited as standing 
in vital and intimate connection with the tran- 
quillity of the heart, which connection is indeed 
the one thought of the Collect, the keystone which 
holds together its several ideas, and makes it a 
compact prayer. Left by their Divine Master in 
a world in which " tribulation " is to be their ap- 
pointed lot, and in which they were exposed to 
all manner of assaults from evil men and evil 
angels, how are the disciples of Christ to find 
peace ? The external peace which they should 
enjoy should result entirely from the internal; 
their tranquillity should flow out from the heart 
into the times. 

" O God, from whom all holy desires, all good 
counsels, and all just works do proceed." The 
prayer is for peace. But for those who know not 
God there is no true peace. The successive stages 
of spiritual growth, which are here marked, ai"e 



AT EVENING PRAYER. 519 

very instructive. In grace, as in nature, there is 
bud, there is blossom, there is fruit. AVhen the 
fi'uit-tree first begins to feel the warm breath 
of spring, small buds and knots form along the 
boughs, which may be either thrown back b}' frosts 
and hard weather, or gradually unfolded by dews 
and rains and sun. These correspond to the " holy 
desires," which God breathes into the heart, and 
which may either be nipped in the bud by an at- 
mosphere of sin and worldhness, or expanded by 
the light of God's countenance shining in ujDon 
the soul, and by the precious dews of His grace. 
Unfolded by natural agencies, the bud becomes 
a beautiful, fragrant blossom. This is a further 
stage in nature, and it corresponds to the further 
stage in grace, when the holy desire has expanded 
into a good counsel, that is, a purpose or delib- 
erate resolve. But there is a third stage in nat- 
ural growth, and the fruit-tree must reach this 
stage, if it is to be profitable to its owner. "When 
the blossom falls off, the fruit must form. And 
there is a similar third stage in grace. Our Lord 
" ordained," not His Apostles only, but ever}^ one 
of His disciples, " that " they " should go and bring- 
forth fruit," the fruit of good works, " and that " 
their "fruit should remain." 

" Give unto thy servants that peace which the 
world cannot give." The reference is to those 
words of our Lord, in which allusion is made to 
the form of valediction customary in Oriental 
countries, which consists in wishing peace to the 
person parted from. " Peace I leave with you, 



520 THE COLLECT FOR PEACE, 

my peace I give unto you " (not wishing it merety, 
but actually communicating it) ; " not as the world 
giveth, give I unto you." This peace is described 
as Christ's own — "m?/ peace " — the peace of which 
He was the possessor, even when He was upon 
earth; the peace which He Himself lived in the en- 
joyment of. It must therefore be something quite 
compatible with external menaces, external at- 
tacks, external troubles; for Christ's career was 
marked by these throughout. Observe that both 
in the passage of Scripture referred to, and in the 
Collect which echoes this passage, the peace is 
spoken- of, not as earned, but as freely given. 

For how does our Collect proceed ? " That our 
hearts may be set to obey thy commandments;" — 
at peace under the shadow of thy wings. And 
how does the great invitation, upon which it is 
based, proceed? "Take my yoke upon you" — 
submit yourselves cordially to all the precepts of 
my new law, and to all the dispensations of my 
Providence — "and learn of me; for I am meek 
and lowly in heart;" — make my submissiveness 
to the Father's will and commandments your 
model, " and ye shall find rest unto your souls." 

"And also that by thee we being defended 
from the fear of our enemies, may pass our time 
in rest and quietness." — It is evident that we do 
not allow ourselves to pray for the tranquillity 
of our times absolutely and without reserve. 
Our Lord, when promising peace to His disci- 
ples in the Gospel once associated with this Col- 
lect, promised that they should find it in Himself 



AT EVENING PR A YE K. 521 

and only in Himself, and emphasized this by add- 
ing: "In the world 3'e shall have tribulation: but 
be of good cheer; I have overcome the world." 
The Church then may not pray altogether to es- 
cape tribulation in the sphere of the world; for 
this would be expressly contrar}' to her Lord's 
will and design for her. Nor does she so pray in 
the clause before us. When we carefully exam- 
ine the wording of that clause, we see that the 
secret and procuring cause of the "rest and quiet- 
ness," in which we pray that we " may pass our 
time," is that God defends us, not from the as- 
saulU of our enemies, but from the fear of them, 
and that this fear is removed b}" our confidence 
in His protection, aud in the overshadowing of 
His wings, according to those more explicit words 
of the Morning Collect for Peace: "that we, surely 
trusting in thy defence, may not fear the poicer of any 
adversaries." 



522 THE COLLECT FOR ALD AGAINST 



SCfje Collect for ^tU against Perils, at 
^"^tmx^ Prager^ 

Ligliten our darkness, we beseech iliee, Lord; and hy 
thy great mercy defend lis from all perils and dan- 
gers of this night; for the love of thy only Son, our 
Saviour, Jesus Christ. Amen. 

Illumina, qucesumus, Domine Deus, tenehras nostras; 
et totius hujus 7ioctis insidias tu a nobis repelle 
2yropiiit(s. Per JDominum, etc. (Gel. Sac, Bkev. 
Sae:) 

THIS Collect is found in tlie Sacramentar}^ of 
Gelasius, not as forming a part of any 
Mass, but as the third of a series of short 
prayers appointed to be said at Yespers. We 
find it also in the Breviary of Sarum as a prayer 
to be said at Compline, Compline (or "Comple- 
torium ") being the last of the seven services of 
the mediseval Church, so called because it com- 
pleted the cycle of the Church's daily devotions, 
and v^as to be said at bedtime. If we desire to 
trace it back as far as it can be traced, we are 
told by Mr. Freeman that it is derived from a 
"prayer-like hymn for illumination and protec- 
tion " in the Compline Service of the Eastern or 
Greek Church, and that it is based upon certain 
verses of the Psalms appointed to be recited at 
that service. 

''Lighten our darkness, we beseech thee, O 



PERILS, AT EVENING PRAYER. 528 

Lord." ' This petition is an echo of one in the 
thirteenth Psahn: "Lighten mine ej^es, lest I 
sleej) the sleej) of death;" and the "Hghtening" 
must be understood in the same Avay both in the 
Psahn and in the Collect. We are to understand 
it in a literal or natural sense. When we say 
" Lighten our darkness/' we ask God, in the first 
instance, to bring back the day. We put Him in 
mind, as it were, of His own covenant made with 
the human race after the flood. Surely it is quito 
w^ell that we should remind ourselves in the course 
of our devotions of this personal agency of God 
in the system of Nature. He has not merely set 
the svstem a^'oino- once for all, and then left it 
to work on without interference or control on 
His oviTQ j)art; no — the hand of the great Creator, 

1 In the Prayer Book of tlie Chr.rch of England, this 
Collect for Aid against Perils opens with a literal transla- 
tion of the Gelasian original, — thus, "Lighten our dark- 
ness, we beseech thee, O Lord," a sentence as beautiful 
in its imagery as it is melodious in rhyj;hm. 

Probably the old custom of saying Evening Prayer early 
in the afternoon made the allusion to approaching dark- 
ness seem to the revisers of 1789 incongruous and unreal. 
At any rate, they were led, for some reason or other, to 
give the phrase the more prosaic form it w^ears in our 
American Book. The so-called "Proposed Book" of 
.1785 shows a transitional wording, "Enlighten our minds, 
Lord, we beseech thee, with thy truth." 

As there seems to be good gi'ound for hoping that before 
very long this much loved prayer may be restored to its 
authentic shape, it has been thought best to let Dean Goul- 
bum's annotations upon the opening sentence remain. 



524 THE COLLECT FOR ALD AGALNST 

after constructing the machinery of Nature, gives 
in the last resort each successive impulse by which 
the machinery is moved. His constant agency is 
the mainspring of the machine. Would it not 
invest the old and familiar petition, " Lighten our 
darkness," with quite a new significance, if we 
thought, while we offered it, that it is really and 
truly the Lord, and not a system of natural laws 
working on independently of Him, " that turneth 
the shadow of death into the morning; and biak- 
eth the day dark with night " ? 

But there is a significance about the " our," in 
in "Lighten our darkness," which must not be 
everlooked, and which is more clearly brought out 
by the phraseology of the Psalm than by that of 
the Collect. It may please God to " lighten the 
darkness,'' and yet it may not please Him to " light- 
en our eyes." When we say, "Lighten our dark- 
ness," we are asking that God would not allow 
our bed to become our grave, that He would 
give us one more da}^ of life, one more day of 
trial, one more • day in which to perfect our re- 
pentance, if indeed that repentance has been in 
earnest begun, and to mature our spiritual char- 
acters, if indeed the germ of sjDiritual character 
is already formed in our heart. See how much 
profession we virtually make in our prayers, even 
when we are least conscious of making any; for 
certainly the asking God to give us another day 
must imply that we honestly mean to make the 
most of it, if He gives it. 

"By thy great mercy defend us from all perils 



PERILS, AT EVENING PRAYER. 525 

and dangers of this night;" the word "perils" is 
somewhat superfluous, since "dangers "expresses 
exactly the same idea. Neither word gives the 
entire point of tlie Latin, which, in a more literal 
translation, runs thus: " And do thou by th}' mer- 
cy rej)el from us the snares of the whole of this 
night." Now, what we pray God, in the original 
Latin, to be shielded Irom during the whole 
night, is "insidiae," — the crafts, artifices, strata- 
gems, which either the devil or man, in their 
subtlety, lay for us during those hours of sleej), 
when we can no longer guard ourselves. It is 
not perils and dangers merely which we pray 
against, but concealed perils and dangers, perils 
and dangers which (as it were) lie in ambuscade. 
"Pull me out of the net that they have laid priv- 
ily for me." 

"For the love of thy only Son, our Saviour, 
Jesus Christ." Well and wisely have our Re- 
formers done in occasionally varying the usual 
mediation-ending of the Collects ("through Jesus 
Christ our Lord ") by other formularies meaning 
the same thing, but calling our attention to the 
significance of the termination more than if the 
form of it were never varied. And what a beau- 
tiful and instructive variety is this, "/b?' the Jove of 
th}' only Son, our Saviour, Jesus Christ," — that 
is, for the love which thou ever bearest to Him, 
and to us for His sake, who took our nature upon 
Him. God can deny Christ nothing. And when 
we say, "Grant us this, O Father, out of thy love 
to Him," we seem to hear the voice which fell 



526 COLLECT FOR AID AGAINST PERILS. 

fi'om lieaven at Christ's Baptism, "This is my 
beloved Son, in whom I am well-pleased " — well 
pleased with the children of men whom He rep- 
resents — well pleased to bow my ear to the hum- 
blest who draws near in His name, and by faith 
pleads His merits and atoning sacrifice. 



THE END. 



